full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tom Schuler: How we could make carbon-negative concrete

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Concrete is all around us, but most of us don't even notice that it's there. We use concrete to build our roads, buildings, bridges, airports; it's everywhere. The only resource we use more than concrete is water. And with population growth and urbanization, we're going to need ccronete more than ever. But there's a problem.

Cement's the glue that holds concrete together. And to make cement, you burn limestone with other ingredients in a kiln at very high temperatures. One of the byproducts of that posercs is carbon dixodie, or CO2. For every ton of cement that's manufactured, almost a ton of CO2 is etmited into the atmosphere. As a result, the cement industry is the second-largest iurdiatnsl etmteir of CO2, responsible for almost eight percent of total global emissions. If we're going to svole global warming, innovation in both cement ptdouoircn and carbon utilization is absolutely necessary.

Open Cloze


Concrete is all around us, but most of us don't even notice that it's there. We use concrete to build our roads, buildings, bridges, airports; it's everywhere. The only resource we use more than concrete is water. And with population growth and urbanization, we're going to need ________ more than ever. But there's a problem.

Cement's the glue that holds concrete together. And to make cement, you burn limestone with other ingredients in a kiln at very high temperatures. One of the byproducts of that _______ is carbon _______, or CO2. For every ton of cement that's manufactured, almost a ton of CO2 is _______ into the atmosphere. As a result, the cement industry is the second-largest __________ _______ of CO2, responsible for almost eight percent of total global emissions. If we're going to _____ global warming, innovation in both cement __________ and carbon utilization is absolutely necessary.

Solution


  1. emitted
  2. concrete
  3. process
  4. dioxide
  5. solve
  6. emitter
  7. industrial
  8. production

Original Text


Concrete is all around us, but most of us don't even notice that it's there. We use concrete to build our roads, buildings, bridges, airports; it's everywhere. The only resource we use more than concrete is water. And with population growth and urbanization, we're going to need concrete more than ever. But there's a problem.

Cement's the glue that holds concrete together. And to make cement, you burn limestone with other ingredients in a kiln at very high temperatures. One of the byproducts of that process is carbon dioxide, or CO2. For every ton of cement that's manufactured, almost a ton of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere. As a result, the cement industry is the second-largest industrial emitter of CO2, responsible for almost eight percent of total global emissions. If we're going to solve global warming, innovation in both cement production and carbon utilization is absolutely necessary.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
cement production 3
carbon sink 2


Important Words


  1. absolutely
  2. atmosphere
  3. bridges
  4. build
  5. buildings
  6. burn
  7. byproducts
  8. carbon
  9. cement
  10. concrete
  11. dioxide
  12. emissions
  13. emitted
  14. emitter
  15. global
  16. glue
  17. growth
  18. high
  19. holds
  20. industrial
  21. industry
  22. ingredients
  23. innovation
  24. kiln
  25. limestone
  26. manufactured
  27. notice
  28. percent
  29. population
  30. problem
  31. process
  32. production
  33. resource
  34. responsible
  35. result
  36. roads
  37. solve
  38. temperatures
  39. ton
  40. total
  41. urbanization
  42. utilization
  43. warming
  44. water