One way to make more environmentally friendly housing

Consider why entrepreneurs do things. Did Bill Gates really develop a better operating system to make squillions – of course not, he had a passion to develop a better operating system, that is all; the squillions followed. As an entrepreneur I believe that what I have developed is more important, and I have the passion, but the goals are so lofty, so immense I cannot do it on my own. I need help.

One way in which governments could encourage change towards sustainability and hence help TecEco is to improve the existing framework in which entrepreneurs can raise capital to bring to reality their creativity. At the present time in Australia S 708 of the Corporations Act 2001 is still far too restrictive as is the attitude of many of the venture capitalists – indeed the word "venture" has been misapplied. To change this we will need market related inducements. To help create a new set of sustainable market segments it is encouraging that some governments are already introducing market drivers. In Australia the NSW government seems to be leading the way, introducing a framework for the recognition of carbon sequestration certificates. Hopefully the Australian Federal Government takes up the challenge and it not tardy in introducing a national system.

Much of how we perceive things is conditioned by the media who could also play a role by exalting the achievements of our entrepreneurs as being desirable outcomes for society in general. I am personally sick of reading about wars and tragedies and would like to hear more about what good things we are doing people are doing to improve the lot of the community in general.

Now that is another point. Sociétés we live in today extol the virtues of the self. According to Prof. Martin E. P Seligman "in the past quarter century, events occurred that so weakened our commitment to larger entities as to leave us almost naked before the ordinary assaults of life." We have lost hope in the capacity in society to cure basic human ills and so in many ways have shifted our commitment to the self. Others call the age we live in the "me" age.

Why then is the contribution by Tececo so important? To answer this I will now discuss in more in detail our technology.

I have mentioned the significance of the built environment in relation to sustainability and the significance of the contribution to emissions by materials such as concrete, steel, aluminium and masonry. At TecEco we have a holistic approach and look to nature for the answers. Using a building material that is CO2 neutral or even sequesters carbon is therefore very sensible – after all that is what nature has doing for the past 3.8 billion years. The potential for keeping the planet the way we can survive on it is enormous. By utilising the new technology and intelligent design there is no reason why buildings could not be much more sustainable, not only with low embodied energies and therefore emissions but low lifetime energies as well.

The new eco-cement - technology will revolutionise the building industry throughout the world because it is much cheaper to manufacture, more durable, utilises waste materials and is resistant to many of the chemical agents that attack Portland cement.

In the world we live in today the consumption of energy is totally related to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted and that is simply because over 95 per cent of the world’s power is generated from fossil fuels. The embodied energy per unit mass of materials used in buildings (and hence carbon dioxide emitted) varies enormously from about two gigajoules per tonne for concrete to hundreds of gigajoules per tonne for aluminium. Because of the differing lifetimes of materials, differing quantities required to perform the same task and different design requirements using these values alone to determine preferred materials to reduce emissions is inappropriate. Materials such as concrete and timber having lower embodied energy intensities and hence emissions per tonne are used for construction in very large quantities; whereas the materials with high energy content and emissions such as stainless steel and aluminium are used in lesser quantities. For the average building by far the greatest amount of embodied energy (and hence emissions) is from concrete followed by masonry and ceramics (together as a group). The average suburban house would contain in the order of 600 – 1000 Gigajoules of embodied energy. Because so much concrete is used in construction generally the affect of using eco-cements instead of concrete, masonry and ceramics could cause the embodied energy in an average house in Australia to drop by more than 250 - 300 Gigajoules and emissions in the order of 14.9 – 17.88 tonnes CO2!

Because eco-cement products such as bricks, blocks and pavers for example have very low embodied energies, net carbon emissions are also low at around .0375 tonnes CO₂ per tonne or even negative if waste organically derived fibres are used for reinforcing as well. 30 mpa concrete in contrast emits .39 tonnes CO₂ per tonne.

Eco-cements are potentially very cheap because they rely on a far more energy efficient thermodynamics than the production of Portland cement and use large quantities of waste. The use of fly ash is an example of waste utilisation. The global output of fly ash is in the order of 600 million tonnes creating huge stockpiles. Less than 20 per cent of this is utilised in the production of building materials. In Australia, we dump around 8 million tonnes of fly ash annually. The rate of usage of this waste product would be increased immensely with the application of eco-cement technology which binds fly and bottom ash and other wastes to make eco-masonry products and other building components. India for example produces 80 million tonnes and China over 230 million tonnes of fly ash a year which if utilised in eco-cement could provide shelter for millions of people.

As a specific example of abatement that would result from using TecEco eco-cement technology, consider 100 per cent adoption of eco-cement technology in the production of concrete blocks and replacement of clay bricks in Australia