Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and it's responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions.
But, what makes concrete so indispensable and strong? The secret ingredient is cement. Cement is what binds everything together and gives concrete its strength – and also where most of the emissions come from. In 202, more than two and a half billion tons of CO2 were released from cement production. While cement in concrete can be recycled, the demand far outstrips the amount recycled each year, which means we have to produce a lot of fresh cement.
There are things we can do to limit how much we use, but because developing countries are using increasing amounts of cement to build housing and infrastructure to improve living standards of their booming populations we’re going to need more and more each year for a while yet. That means we need to find a way of producing it without the emissions, and unfortunately cement-making is likely to be one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize.
But though it’s difficult, it’s by no means impossible. In this video we’re going to take a look at how traditional cement production works, where the CO2 comes from in that process, why it’s so hard to get rid of, and how we can make cement without CO2 emissions. I’m going to try and make the abstract concepts a bit more… concrete.
Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
01:29 Laying the foundations - Cement vs Concrete
02:35 How is cement produced?
03:55 Methods of reducing emissions in cement production
06:48 Can we avoid using lime altogether?
07:56 Carbon Capture and Storage using Cement
09:40 Removing emissions from heat
10:33 Outro
Sources:
(coming soon)
The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: presenter, producer, writer
Kevin Irman: research, calculations, assistant editor
Javi Diez: editor linkedin.com/in/javierdiezsuarez/?locale=en_US
David Hodgson: writing and research
If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. patreon.com/engineeringwithrosie
Or for a one-off contribution you can support by buying a coffee ☕️ here —
buymeacoffee.com/engwithrosie
Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and it's responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions.
But, what makes concrete so indispensable and strong? The secret ingredient is cement. Cement is what binds everything together and gives concrete its strength – and also where most of the emissions come from. In 202, more than two and a half billion tons of CO2 were released from cement production. While cement in concrete can be recycled, the demand far outstrips the amount recycled each year, which means we have to produce a lot of fresh cement.
There are things we can do to limit how much we use, but because developing countries are using increasing amounts of cement to build housing and infrastructure to improve living standards of their booming populations we’re going to need more and more each year for a while yet. That means we need to find a way of producing it without the emissions, and unfortunately cement-making is likely to be one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonize.
But though it’s difficult, it’s by no means impossible. In this video we’re going to take a look at how traditional cement production works, where the CO2 comes from in that process, why it’s so hard to get rid of, and how we can make cement without CO2 emissions. I’m going to try and make the abstract concepts a bit more… concrete.
Bookmarks:
00:00 Intro
01:29 Laying the foundations - Cement vs Concrete
02:35 How is cement produced?
03:55 Methods of reducing emissions in cement production
06:48 Can we avoid using lime altogether?
07:56 Carbon Capture and Storage using Cement
09:40 Removing emissions from heat
10:33 Outro
Sources:
(coming soon)
The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: presenter, producer, writer
Kevin Irman: research, calculations, assistant editor
Javi Diez: editor linkedin.com/in/javierdiezsuarez/?locale=en_US
David Hodgson: writing and research
If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. patreon.com/engineeringwithrosie
Or for a one-off contribution you can support by buying a coffee ☕️ here —
buymeacoffee.com/engwithrosie
