Earth’s Second-Most Used Material Needs Evolution: Lara Williams

The modern world is held together not by romantic notions of trust or community (though they help), but by thick gray goo.

Concrete is the second-most consumed material on the planet after water. Strong, cheap and resilient, it’s made everywhere and used for pretty much everything. From hospitals and bridges to dams and pavements, if it’s infrastructure, you’ll probably need concrete for it.

But because the world uses about 30 billion metric tons of the stuff every year — a number that’s expected to grow as large swathes of the Global South urbanize — it also accounts for a chunky percentage of humanity’s carbon footprint. ...