By ScienceAdviser.  Excerpt: ...on a hot summer day... Concrete sidewalks and buildings practically exude heat, requiring extra powerful air conditioners on the inside while contributing to an “urban heat dome” on the outside. The warming climate is slated to make these effects even worse. Researchers may have found a solution: a special cement, a key ingredient of concrete, that stays cool. ...test their cooling cement, the researchers placed a slab on a roof for a day, finding that it stayed chill even at the toastiest temperatures. Another panel was left outside for a year and experienced minimal degradation. ...Since the cement dries in as little as 10 minutes, the authors propose that it could be applied to existing building surfaces, including concrete, metals, and ceramic tiles. The team conducted in-depth modeling of how the cooling cement could be used in seven cities around the world to help achieve net-zero or negative carbon emissions for buildings by reducing the high ...

By Jon Hurdle , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Philadelphia’s Navy Yard ...evolving further to become a pioneer for sustainable development with energy-efficient buildings, innovative storm-water management, construction that’s designed to withstand future sea-level rise and green spaces that provide an inviting environment for the campus’s approximately 15,000 employees. ...Those efforts have just been recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council which gave a portion of the Navy Yard a gold certification in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program for Neighborhood Development, known as LEED-ND. The certification, which covers 39 existing and 38 planned buildings over 295 of the site’s 1,200 acres, makes the project the biggest of its kind in the United States and the first in Philadelphia. ...To qualify for LEED-ND, properties must meet Green Building Council standards for building construction and operation and provide evidence that energy, water and materials...

By Alessandro F. Rotta Loria , Nishu Devi et al, Wiley, Advanced Sustainable Systems.  Excerpt: This lab-grown “sand” could help reduce the construction industry’s climate footprint. Northwestern University. Sand may seem like an infinite resource, but it’s an essential ingredient in building materials and we’re actually depleting it fast , Now, researchers have devised a way to grow sand-like materials from seawater—and by doing so, lock away carbon and reduce the construction industry’s environmental footprint. Currently, the sand used in concrete, gravel, paints, plasters, and other materials is taken straight from sandy spots like coastlines and riverbeds. But a team of researchers has figured out how to make calcium- and magnesium-based minerals like those in sand—“not by digging into the Earth, but by harnessing electricity and CO 2 ,” lead author Alessandro Rotta Loria explains in a statement. First, the researchers applied an electric current to seawater, which naturally c...

By Christopher Bataille , Science.  Excerpt: According to current climate science, global temperatures will continue to rise until net carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions reach zero ( 1 )—that is, when the amount of CO 2  added to the atmosphere is balanced by the amount removed. Given current projected emissions, 2 billion to 15 billion tonnes (Gt) of CO 2  may need to be removed from the atmosphere annually to meet the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming below 2°C and preferably to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures ( 2 ,  3 ). ...Van Roijen  et al.  ( 4 ) report that replacing traditional building materials with CO 2 -storing alternatives could sequester carbon at the billion-tonne level. ...Building materials such as asphalt, wood, stone, steel, and concrete are foundational to human civilization and have large global demands, ...~30 Gt of concrete are used each year in the world ( 5 ). Some of these materials are also major c...

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/us-awards-record-6-bln-back-industrial-emissions-reduction-projects-2024-03-25/ By Andrea Shalal  and  David Shepardson , Reuters.  Excerpt: The U.S. Energy Department on Monday announced $6 billion in federal funding to subsidize 33 industrial projects in 20 states to cut carbon emissions, saying the investment would support well-paying union jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will unveil the awards during a visit to a Cleveland-Cliffs Steel Corp  (CLF.N), opens new tab  facility in Middletown, Ohio, which will receive up to $500 million to install two new electric arc furnaces and hydrogen-based technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1 million tons. ...Together, the projects are expected to eliminate 14 million metric tons of pollution each year, equivalent to taking some 3 million gas-powered vehicles off the road, she said. The Portland Cement ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/ferociously-hot-weather-could-make-some-cities-unlivable-low-tech-solutions-can-help By VAISHNAVI CHANDRASHEKHAR , Science. Excerpt: MUMBAI, INDIA ...Before the monsoon rains arrive, temperatures can top 37°C, with humidity at a sweltering 95%. ...Sometimes, Mumbai’s heat becomes deadly. In April, on a day the temperature reached 36°C, 11 people sitting through an hourslong outdoor ceremony died from heat stroke. At least 20 others were hospitalized. ...It wasn’t until 2015 that officials designated heat waves as a natural disaster at the national level. ...heat action plans, or HAPs, have been proliferating in India in the past few years. In general, an HAP spells out when and how officials should issue heat warnings and alert hospitals and other institutions. ... IN THE LONG RUN , cooling India’s cities will mean changing the way they are built. One possibility is to look to the past, when structures were designed to insulate peo...

https://www.entrepreneur.com/green-entrepreneur/scientist-invents-the-worlds-whitest-paint-to-cool-down/455739 By Jonathan Small, Entrepreneur.  Excerpt: A scientist at Purdue University concocted a white paint that can cool down buildings and prevent global temperatures from rising. Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering, created white paint that reflects 98% of the sun's rays away from the Earth's surface. When applied to the roof of structures, the paint cools down surfaces as much as eight degrees during the day and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, according to a report in  The New York Times . "If you were to use this paint to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet [93 m2], we estimate that you could get a cooling power up to 10 kilowatts. That's more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses," Ruan said....

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/business/mass-timber-universities.html By  Lisa Prevost , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Mass timber, an engineered wood product that offers durability and sustainability benefits, has become increasingly prominent at colleges across the country, where it is included not only as a concept in the curriculum but also as a material in campus buildings. Experts say universities are helping to increase awareness of mass timber — layers of wood bonded with glue or nails — by demonstrating its potential as a low-carbon alternative to steel and concrete. ...Long used in Europe, cross-laminated panels are so strong they are suitable for walls, roofs and flooring. And they have a number of other benefits: They capture carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere; they are more sustainable than other construction materials, like steel and concrete; and they are exposed, adding aesthetic appeal.... 

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’...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/climate/emissions-construction-buildings.html By  Peter Wilson , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...Elephant Park, a three-acre plot of fountains, swings and slides and open space at the center of a large redevelopment [in London] which has seen the Brutalist architecture of a 1,200-home public housing estate replaced by a new neighborhood that by 2026 will hold about 2,924 apartments and townhouses. ...One resident walking her dog complained recently that her rent is becoming unaffordable, before quickly adding that she is delighted to have a supermarket and gym in the same building as her one-bedroom apartment, with rail and Underground stations right next door and shops, bars, a yoga studio, a library and medical facilities sprinkled through the development. ...“It is an absolutely exemplary example of what we need to be doing to make cities greener, and we need to be doing it quickly and all around the world,” said Kate Meyrick, a British-b...