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There was, years ago, a debate that arose within the construction industry from time to time: Which was the better paving material for streets and highways asphalt or concrete?
The market made its choice, and the concrete folks licked their wounds and turned their attention to other applications. Concrete, after all, was (and is) the most common construction material in the world, so there was lots of business to be had without paving.
But now, at a time when people look ahead at what a new year might bring, it seems that old debate might be rekindled in 2011. The reason is some preliminary research results released just a couple of weeks ago by something called the Concrete Sustainability Hub at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The hub was established a little over a year ago. Its a collaboration between MITs schools of engineering, architecture and planning, and management. The industry is represented by the Portland Cement Association and the Ready Mixed Concrete Research and Education Foundation.
Korky Koroluk
The preliminary findings just released tied in with new standards for life-cycle assessment modeling, and they begin to detail the ecological costs involved in the manufacture and use of paving and building materials.
They show that vehicles driven on concrete road get better fuel efficiency than those driven on asphalt. That could mean lower life-cycle carbon emissions for roads paved with concrete.
The asphalt paving industry, of course, will be unwilling to give up any of the edge it has developed over the years, so it seems inevitable that the old debate will be reignited, but with new data.
The findings contain other good news for the concrete industry. For example, it says that homes made with insulated concrete forms (ICF) can provide savings of 20 per cent in heating cooling and ventilation costs when compared with conventional wood-frame construction. That is likely to set the wood industry abuzz.
Industry spokesman Gilberto Perez, said in a statement that these research results show the possibility of
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