Sources: White House Briefing Room; CP staff
A mid-October White House update on Federal Buy Clean Initiative and companion Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Demonstration Program progress references Cemex USA, Clark Pacific, Heidelberg Materials North America, National Ready Mixed Concrete Co., Ozinga Ready Mix Concrete and Summit Materials. Each has committed to measures that advance carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals or strategies underpinning Buy Clean and construction-geared Industrial Demonstrations activities.
A White House communique salutes the six producers, CO2-mineralizing process developer CarbonCure Technologies, and four cementitious material startup companies for corporate or project-specific commitments outlined in response to a Buy Clean and Industrial Demonstrations call to action. Commitments referencing CO2 emissions reduction or global warming potential metrics are based on National Ready Mixed Concrete Association 2022 regional benchmarks of CO2 kilograms per yard of concrete.
• Cemex USA pledges to supply concrete with a global warming potential reduction of at least 40 percent for a suite of demonstration projects.
• Clark Pacific, one of the West Coast’s top precast, prestressed producers, pledges to deliver five demonstration projects whose concrete elements have mix designs with cement contents 25 percent below limits for precast per Marin County and Santa Monica, Calif. low carbon concrete codes.
• Looking to 2030 metrics with 2020 baselines, Heidelberg Materials pledges company-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 25 percent and a 50 percent reduction at a single U.S. cement plant. It also commits to delivering a suite of commercial scale decarbonization demonstration projects using ultra-low carbon concrete solutions.
• National Ready Mixed Concrete Co., one of southern California’s top ready mixed operators, aims to pilot five innovative demonstration projects of near-zero emissions concrete by 2027. The producer has also announced the first limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) concrete in the Golden State. (LC3 is recognized for its potential to reduce the carbon factor of portland cement-only concrete mix designs by 40-50 percent. NRMCC parent company National Cement of California is negotiating a DOE grant supporting LC3 production at its Lebec operation north of Los Angeles.)
• The largest independent in ready mixed and a key Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin market player, Ozinga RMC is eyeing at least five demonstrations of concrete formulated with half the CO2 emissions factor typical of Great Lakes Region ready mixed orders. Those deliveries will follow the producer’s placement of four low-carbon mixes for a recent Open Compute Project Foundation demonstration hosted at the headquarters of testing and engineering leader Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates—an undertaking also noted in the White House communique.
• Summit Materials is working with Amazon Web Services to scale up promising concrete decarbonization solutions, including material processors equipped to provide LC3 or lower-emission calcined clays. The teamwork fosters objectives of AWS, which stipulated reduced carbon concrete in the construction specifications of 36 data centers commencing or under way in 2023.
The White House communique spotlights these startup businesses and their processes or products: Sublime Systems developer of a namesake, ASTM C1157-grade cement produced by an electrolysis method versus the pyroprocessing synonymous with portland cement clinker; C-Crete Technologies, granite- versus limestone-based concrete binder; Urban Mining Industries, Pozzotive ground glass pozzolan purveyor; and, Queens Carbon, developer of hydrothermal processing technology supporting carbon-neutral cement production.
White House officials recognize the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund for its financial support of CarbonCure Technologies, whose carbon dioxide-sequestering method is widely adopted in North American ready mixed production, and Prometheus Materials bio-cement material developer. The Fund supports Sublime Systems as well, and recently entered an agreement potentially leading to a contract for environmental attribute certificates emanating from Sublime Cement shipments.
Finally, the White House communique cites one of the oldest concrete practitioners, Turner Construction Co., for its commitment to place concrete mixes whose carbon factor is 50 percent below regional benchmarks on five projects through 2026. Beginning next year, the firm will track embodied carbon and require environmental product declarations for projects representing a majority of its billings.