A Huge City Polluter? Buildings. Here’s a Surprising Fix

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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/10/climate/buildings-carbon-dioxide-emissions-climate.html

By Brad Plumer, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: On cold mornings in New York City, boilers in the basements of thousands of buildings kick on, burning natural gas or oil to provide heat for the people upstairs. Carbon dioxide from these boilers wafts up chimneys and into the air, one of the city’s biggest sources of global warming emissions. ...At the Grand Tier, a 30-story apartment tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the carbon dioxide from its two giant gas boilers is captured, cooled to a liquid and then trucked to a concrete factory in Brooklyn. There, the carbon is mixed with cement and sealed into concrete blocks, where it can’t heat the atmosphere. “This is the first carbon capture system on a building that we’re aware of anywhere in the world,” said Brian Asparro, the chief operating officer of CarbonQuest, the company behind the system. “And we expect that it won’t be the last.” ...A sweeping new climate law in New York City aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from large buildings 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. Starting next year, buildings that exceed emissions limits will face steadily escalating fines. ...that has turned New York City into a laboratory of sorts, forcing change and innovation as property owners scramble to avoid huge penalties. ...New York State is currently funding a round of novel electric heat pump and efficiency projects that could serve as models for other buildings....

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