Bricks Verses Volcanoes

Today I read an article in The Daily Mail about the continuing Icelandic Volcano eruption. The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull is not abating, it seems to be a slow motion event which ebbs and flows. It is still affecting air travel over Europe.

The aviation industry is coping, but again we realize how dependant we are on our planet and the conditions we consider normal. But what is normal? 

I have been reading for weeks that the neighboring volcano, Katia, which is much bigger is threatening to erupt. Many scientists are now putting forth the model of Icelands volcanic activity based on a 140 year cycle. We are now entering into another period of activity which coud see at least three other volcanoes besides Katia erupting in the next few years. Perhaps it is time to reconsider the healthful, relaxing effects of a sea voyage, or as I have metioned before...bring back blimps!

The three others are  Grimsvton, Hekla and Askja, which are all bigger than Eyjafjalljokull. Incidentlally, Hekla was the volcano in Jules Vernes novel, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, which ejected the subterrenean travellers when it erupted in the 1880's. 

What I found interesting about the article was the comments.

 I found some of the comments at the end of the article interesting because they reflected the ignorance and the desparate grasping at straws by climate change deniers.

They all tried to minimize the impact of human activity in the generation of CO2 by comparing it to the release of volcanoes.

Yes, it is true that volcanoes release a loincredible amounts of CO2, but we know that our activity on earth has released CO2 and other Greenhouse gasses on a continuing incrementally increasing level constantly. To try to deflect the consequences of our activity and deny the need to change because of volcanoes is tragic.

Which brings me to a very interesting and positive item. We know that the aviation industry is one of the major generators of atmospheric CO2 pollution and jet travel increases daily, but, the coal-fired baking of bricks generates more CO2 annually than the entire aviation industry. A biomanufacturing process aims to change that, replacing fire with a mixture of non-pathogenic bacteria and sand. It's cheap, and the inventor, Professor Ginger Dosier, says it produces better and more sustainable bricks.

There are over 1.3 trillion bricks manufactured each year worldwide, and over 10% are made by hand in coal-fired ovens. On average, the baking process emits 1.4 pounds of carbon per brick - more than the world's entire aviation fleet. In countries like India and China, outdated coal-fired brick kilns consume more energy, emit more carbon, and produce great quantities of particulate air pollution. Dosier's process replaces baking with simple mixing, and because it is low-tech (apart from the production of the bacterial activate), can be done onsite in localities without modern infrastructure. The process uses no heat at all:mixing sand and non-pathogenic bacteria (sporosar) and putting the mixture into molds. The bacteria induce calcite precipitation in the sand and yield bricks with sandstone-like properties. If biomanufactured bricks replaced each new brick on the planet, it would save nearly 800 million tons of CO2 annually.

Publish Post

Biomanufactured Brick: Bricks Without Clay or Carbon (via Beyond the Beyond)