DL Open Thread: Thurs., Aug. 22, 2019
Matt Meyer: Not An Environmental Racist. Unlike John Carney, who sells out an entire community for 10 jobs and a ‘slag-grinding’ operation. (I STILL can’t believe that. Talk about priorities.) Matt Meyer, Jea Street, and New Castle County Council do what the General Assembly would have done had not State Sen. Darius Brown apparently been bought off by some paltry campaign contributions. Oh, and John? You commit environmental racism every single time you impose more toxic disadvantages on communities of color in the name of even the most paltry mantra of economic development. It’s not what’s ‘in your heart’. It’s what you enable. Seriously, I thought I knew you. What happened?
Arizona Rethug AG Hires Vote Fraud Phony To Police Elections. Stealing elections is the only way they can win. But, they can steal elections.
Jay Inslee Drops Out–But Not Out Of Climate Change Fight. I wish he’d stayed in. He was truly running for something–not just to boost his ego. I hope he holds candidates to the climactic fire. In fact, he should moderate any Democratic climate debate.
The Madman President. Why can’t every media outlet, every Democrat, and, yes every Rethug, just say it? By any rational measure, including this recent one, he’s certifiably insane.
Just Look At The National Security ‘Exemptions’ From The Tariff War. Including, of course, Bibles.
Some days I just can’t wait to escape the toxicity that I find on a daily basis. Today is one of those days.
What do you want to talk about?
I agree, this week has tipped the scales into Mad As Fuque for Trump. O.K., the bit about the “second coming of god” and all were quotes from a loony toon preacher, but still…… Who the hell would ever say that? I think the pressure is getting to the old fart and the political version of “the fog of war” has settled in.
Ground granulated blast furnace slag is a pozzolan, which means that while it is not cementitious, it becomes cementitious in the presence of calcium hydroxide liberated in the hydration of Portland cement. The production of slag cement is far more efficient than that of Portland cement and the total ‘carbon footprint’ of a concrete made with a significant slag cement replacement is lower than that of concrete that uses only Portland cement.
Depending on the grade of slag cement produced, a concrete made with a 50% replacement of slag for Portland cement will be as strong or stronger than the same mix made with straight Portland cement. Since the specific gravity of slag — normally 2.95 — is lower than that of Portland cement — 3.15 — a pound-for-pound replacement also means that a bit less sand is required to produce a cubic yard of concrete. It’s beneficial all the way around.
At least when I was there, ready-mixed concrete producers in New Castle County loved slag.
It’s not beneficial to the environmentally-challenged community where it will be located. That is the issue.
So, if not there, where?
No industrial plant is perfectly environmentally friendly. Either it’s going to be built where someone opposes it, or it won’t get built. If it doesn’t get built, the price of slag cement will rise — and it’s already too expensive! — as there’s less supply versus demand, and less of it will be used in concrete production, increasing the carbon footprint of a cubic yard of concrete.
Anyplace where the people who live won’t be further impacted by environmental racism. This community has long been an area where the powerful have dumped all sorts of serial polluters on an almost powerless group of people.
If such a place cannot be found, then let this Pennsylvania company keep their 10 jobs in Pennsylvania.
It’s not a matter of people opposing it. Yes, people will oppose anything. But not always with good reason. This is opposed with good reason — those people are already under an unfair environmental burden.
Siting the plant is neither the public’s nor the government’s responsibility. Protecting the public is. But given that you’re asking, why not at the site of its production, steel plants? Those generally are not right next door to housing developments.
The “carbon footprint” is not a magic incantation. The amount of carbon in concrete will not amount to a bucket in the oceans that will rise. And simply burying the slag would do just as much to reduce carbon footprints.
Someday you’ll figure out that capitalism is killing us. Until then, why not sprinkle some coal dust on your cornflakes? That will help reduce your carbon footprint.
Alby wrote:
You should never argue with me concerning concrete; that was my profession for over thirty years. From the BBC:
It is the production of ‘clinker,’ which is the most energy intensive, and produces most of the CO2 emissions in manufacturing Portland cement. In ground granulated blast furnace slag, the clinker has already been made, the byproduct of smelting iron ore. The more Portland cement you can replace in concrete with slag cement the less cement is needed. Burying the slag rather than producing the pozzolan, as you suggested, would increase the demand for cement, and thus the carbon footprint.
Slag cement is not the only pozzolan; flyash, which is harvested from coal-burning power plants, is frequently used as well. But most flyash — Class C is an exception, but is not widely available — doesn’t help concrete as much as slag cement, and flyash substitution for Portland cement is at a much lower rate. A common rule of thumb is replacement of 15% of cement, and it isn’t pound-for-pound; you add more flyash than you subtract cement. With a good Grade 120 slag, I commonly ran a 50% replacement rate, and in one large project, in which the heat of hydration needed to be kept down, I used a mix which was 70% slag.
Further, flyash has a lot of problems. Though flyash is much cheaper than slag, it’s use in specification concrete with a higher required strength than 3500 PSI is risky. More, flyash is a nightmare for quality control, in that it’s frequently changing ‘loss on ignition’ leads to fluctuating air-entrainment percentages.
Let’s see, you are typing on a computer developed, refined and produced by capitalism. The food you eat, the house in which you live, the clothes on your back, were all produced by capitalism.
Just where do you think people will live, what will they eat, how will they survive ? As you (plural) push against industrial production, for all sorts of reasons, we will have less of the things which make modern life and fewer jobs with which to earn the money to buy food. As the left push for ever-increasing urbanization, you’ll need more and more apartment buildings — and they all require concrete to build.
There was a time before capitalism . . . and most people never reached fifty years of age. The vast majority of people lived subsistence lifestyles. Capitalism has not been killing us; it has lengthened our lives and lifted the majority of people in the developed world out of poverty.
Capitalism did not produce the things you cite. Workers did. Capitalism is what takes the profits from the workers and gives it to people who already had capital. This is why, unfettered, capitalism ends like a game of Monopoly — all are bankrupt but one who’s king.
The increase in lifespan is due almost entirely to antibiotics. The lifestyles in this country are indeed killing us, as the drop in life expectancy illustrates. Eighty percent of the populace lives hand to mouth so the other 20 percent, you and me included, can live in relative comfort. That’s not viable long-term.
Jobs are going to disappear even as we manufacture more and more useless crap. This is why capitalism’s core idea — if you don’t work, you don’t eat — is outdated, even counterproductive.
I don’t expect you, who feel more sympathy for people who might lose their businesses under misguided equality laws than for people gunned down by police, to understand. But the rat race was designed to turn us all into rats.
As for concrete, I will never again question your expertise in the field. And you’re right, it’s easier to give up meat than concrete.
But that’s only because it’s cheap in comparison to every other material. And like most cheaply made things — plastic springs to mind — it’s cheap in large part because the ill effects are borne by the public rather than the manufacturer.
@Dana: So I looked up the article on cement’s carbon emissions, and I found this:
Late-stage capitalism produces the “small number of major producers” in every industry, making every industry resistant to change business models.
And changing, as the article notes, will require the outside intervention of government, as does every facet of capitalism to keep it from grinding us into something you shovel into an industrial kiln.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844
It is being speculated that the GM demo material is being planned for disposal not only at the recently requested permit for expansion DPRI site but for the newly permitted SLAG operations in Southbridge. Woudn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to guess on this crap and they just spelled it out once Harvey Hanna took over?
I may be wrong but this is how i am calling it.