Pouring It On

Dam raising, roller compacted concrete practice reach new heights Colorado’s Gross Reservoir serves as a combination storage and regulating facility for water that flows under the North America Continental Divide. New Jersey-based Doka USA has supplied formwork to raise the reservoir’s dam from 340 ft. to 471 ft., nearly tripling its 42,000-acre-ft. capacity to 119,000-acre-ft. Construction over a 2024-2027 schedule…

Read More

CarbonCure opens carbon credit revenue streams to precast producers

Sources: CarbonCure Technologies, Halifax, N.S.; CP staff A December 2024 update to the Verra Verified Carbon Standard Methodology VM0043 for CO2 Utilization in Concrete Production enables CarbonCure Technologies-equipped precast concrete producers to generate credits in line with their ready mixed production counterparts. Over the past three years, CarbonCure ready mixed producer partners in North America and overseas markets have shared in…

Read More

WJE tests low-carbon, data center slab mixes for tech leaders

The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) has tapped construction materials testing and engineering giant Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc. (WJE) to measure a set of low embodied carbon concrete mixes for their potential in data center floors. The mixes use supplementary cementitious materials plus a portland cement alternative binder. Derived from feedstocks and commercially available processes, the latter is yet…

Read More

AWS data center concrete specs surpass 20,000 tCO2e savings

Amazon Web Services Director of Sustainability Chris Walker cites savings of 22,000-plus tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) in 2023 across 27 data center construction material schedules, owing to specification of lower carbon concrete and steel where possible. Coupled with the tCO2e metric, AWS continuously evaluates design criteria with an eye to streamlining material requirements “for everything from server racks…

Read More

Sika extends budget for higher polycarboxylate admixture output

Sources: Sika AG, Baar, Switzerland; CP staff The parent company of New Jersey-based Sika Corp. has announced further investment in polymer production capacity at its Sealy, Texas plant, the second such outlay in five years. The move will yield higher volumes of the chemical building blocks underpinning the ViscoCrete family of admixtures for self-consolidating, high slump and cement-optimized concrete mixes. …

Read More

Governor binds New York agencies to “Clean Concrete” mandate 

Sources: Office of New York Governor Kathy Hochul; CP staff Concrete suppliers will soon be required to submit environmental product declarations for mixes delivered to New York State agency projects above $1 million and requiring 50 or more yards, or NYS Department of Transportation work above $3 million and requiring 200 or more yards. Under just-adopted Buy Clean Concrete guidelines…

Read More

Port Authority NYNJ sets carbon threshold for concrete specifications

Sources: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; CP staff Concrete schedules for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s infrastructure and building portfolio will soon reflect maximum carbon dioxide emissions limits—equivalent to a 25 percent or greater reduction in portland cement content—plus portland limestone cement and ground glass pozzolans allowances. The new CO2 threshold and conditional binder…

Read More

Laser tunnel’s HPC mixes stingy on aluminum, magnesium and silica

CC121217 Tunnel

Sources: LafargeHolcim Ltd., Zurich; CP staff

LafargeHolcim and Holcim Deutschland have formulated a series of high-performance concrete mixes for a 3.4-kilometer tunnel housing the world’s most powerful X-ray laser. Located near Hamburg, Germany, the European XFEL generates extremely intense X-ray flashes allowing researchers around the world to map atomic details of viruses, record chemical reactions, and study planets’ interior processes.

Read More