Just ran across this NYT article by Henry Fountain:  “Concrete Being Remixed with Environment in Mind.”  Concrete might actually help curb carbon emissions when created with a new formula:

In his mixes, Dr. MacDonald replaced much of the Portland cement with two industrial waste products — fly ash, left over from burning coal in power plants, and blast-furnace slag. Both are what are called pozzolans, reactive materials that help make the concrete stronger. Because the CO2 emissions associated with them are accounted for in electricity generation and steel making, they also help reduce the concrete’s carbon footprint. Some engineers and scientists are going further, with the goal of developing concrete that can capture and permanently sequester CO2 from power plants or other sources, so it cannot contribute to the warming of the planet.

I wonder if this new concrete is more economical as well.  It seems that the companies working on it are betting that it will be.  Concrete, and the space it takes up, was not something I had ever thought about in terms of carbon emissions.  I know that concrete supplants trees, but I didn’t think about it actually adding to the carbon footprint.  Since we do use so much concrete, it would be great if it could help reduce emissions.  I wonder what other everyday materials could be restructured to reduce our overall carbon production.