It was about a year ago that I first heard about Calera, a mysterious company that claims to be able to make cement by reacting CO2 and seawater with some “magic pixie dust” to produce a cement like material. Their claims have been widely disputed and their secretive nature has not done much to help the cause, but for some reason they seem to be getting a lot of press lately. Green building material articles from Reuters, the Contra Costa Times and other sources have been giving them ink. Also, the Greentech blog has been following the story and presenting scientific opinion for some time.
I fall into the camp of skeptical but seriously interested on this one. Even if Calera can only produce a cement additive it will be a breakthrough in sequestration technology. Cement can already be (and is) considered a green building material by a number of measures, and carbon capture could really boost the cause. Notably other commercial enterprises are looking to join the fray with this mystery technology.
What do you think? Fish oil or a greenhouse gas breakthrough? Let us know in the comments.
[...] wrote about Calera before in our “Magic Pixie Dust” post, a term taken from one of the critics of the technology. At BGE we don’t know if [...]
[...] are on Calera’s first project—a four hundred foot long sidewalk in Santa Cruz, California. Calera has been repeatedly debated within the forum as they’ve tried to perfect a way to use [...]