£100m Net-Zero College By Balfour Beatty Gets Approval
The Scottish Government has given its approval for a new campus by Balfour Beatty for Fife College, a net-zero college building. The campus in Dunfermline is part of a new 58-acre scheme where the college and two high schools will be relocated in time for the summer of 2024.
Holyrood is backing the project with £100m and has directed the funding towards ensuring the build contributes to its target of ensuring zero-emission buildings by 2045.
Scottish Funding Council CEO Kate Watt said, “They are ambitious and ground-breaking, designed to enhance the experience of students and to meet stretching environmental performance standards as we move to becoming a net-zero nation. We will be working closely with all partners to bring this ambition to life.”
New Kind Of Concrete Developed By Tokyo Researchers
The University of Tokyo said that a new way to reduce emissions levels caused by concrete use has been proposed and proven to work by Professor Ippei Maruyama and C4S (Calcium Carbonate Circulation System for Construction) project manager Professor Takafumi Noguchi.
“Our concept is to acquire calcium from discarded concrete, which is otherwise going to waste,” said Maruyama. “We combine this with carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust or even from the air. And we do this at much lower temperatures than those used to extract calcium from limestone at present.”
“It is exciting to make progress in this area, but there are still many challenges to overcome,” said Noguchi. “As well as increasing the strength and size limits of calcium carbonate concrete, it would be even better if we could further reduce the energy use of the production process. However, we hope that in the coming decades, carbon-neutral calcium carbonate concrete will become the mainstream type of concrete and will be one of the solutions to climate change.”