Improved buildings could make a big dent in climate change
physorg.comThe construction and operation of buildings accounts for approximately 40 percent of all U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases. The most-used building material in the world, concrete, is used to construct many of the nation’s homes and office buildings — but a new MIT report says a variety of measures could drastically reduce, and ultimately even eliminate, the carbon footprint of most new concrete buildings, as well as some older ones.
Smart cities: what urban life will be like in 2050 | London Evening Standard
standard.co.ukBuildings of the future will be made from self-healing concrete, be powered by their solar paint and even have flying robots, says Jasmine Gardner
“Smart cities” is the buzz phrase of the moment. It refers to energy-efficient and spacially economical urban worlds in which we’ll live in years to come — all thanks to technology. Smarter cities are now a focus of both big business, such as Shell and IBM, and small entrepreneurs and scientists, such as the Dutch microbiologists who have developed a self-healing concrete. Cracks in the buildings of the future will be filled by calcium carbonate, produced by a bacteria feeding on nutrients, both incorporated into the cement. The bacteria are only activated when rainwater gets into a crack.
