Earlier this week, two low-carbon cement startups unveiled new partnerships with data-center developers and operators, which are looking at ways to curb the tech sector’s ballooning climate impact.
The separate announcements from Sublime Systems and Brimstone are a striking example of how businesses are pressing ahead with efforts to decarbonize essential polluting industries like cement making — even as the Trump administration guts federal programs meant to kick-start U.S. manufacturing of cleaner construction materials.
Both companies are developing novel ways of producing cement that don’t cook the planet in the process. Cement — the gluey powder mixed with sand, gravel, and water to form concrete — is responsible for roughly 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Nearly all cement is made today by heating carbon-rich limestone in fossil-fuel-burning kilns.
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