This is why TerraFusion is extremely pleased to record a successful field test in Trinidad, using our ECOroads-DS soil stabilization solution. Under the watchful eye of a government engineer, a test project complete in silty soils – soils not typically known to be good for road construction.  Within 24 hours, the road was of high enough structural strength to be able to support heavy truck traffic.

While this is a small test, it bodes very well for both the efficacy of ECOroads and TerraFusion’s goals of being able to provide an afford and reliable means of improving and building roads in the developing world.

TerraFusion Announces Full Approval for ECOroads Soil Stabilization Solution in Russia

New York, New York, February 4, 2010 – TerraFusion is proud to announce that the Russian government has granted its ECOroads soil stabilization solution full approval for use on all government, military and private road projects. TerraFusion’s exclusive distribution partner in Russia and the former Soviet Union, Stucco & Construction Materials, Inc. (SCMI), has worked tirelessly to obtain these approvals, conducting laboratory and field testing throughout the past several months.

ECOroads is an all-natural, biomass-based, soil stabilizer potent enough to replace a significant amount of the costly and environmentally degrading aggregate rock that is typically used for road foundations.  Now approved in New York, California, and several countries, ECOroads is an easy to install, high value product that is quickly gaining international recognition for its efficacy.

Edward Rotstein, president of Stucco & Construction Materials, said, “We are pleased that the Russian authorities have recognized the benefit of ECOroads, and we’re excited to include it in our portfolio of premium products for the upcoming building season. In the former Soviet Union, where many roads go unpaved and need full annual replacement, with ECOroads there is now a valuable opportunity to improve road performance and reduce long-term operating costs.”

Omri Dahan, CEO of TerraFusion, added his support as well, “SCMI has been doing an outstanding job for us, and we are not at all surprised by this latest milestone. Their dedication to product promotion and approval has gone unmatched. We know they are also pursuing approvals in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other republics, and look forward to our shared success in the years to come.”

TerraFusion is a Brentwood, California, based manufacturer of biomass-based construction products that help clients save money, simplify construction processes and reduce overall environmental impact. TerraFusion is proud to be a leader on the cutting edge of environmentally responsible construction technology.

The concrete that is so ubiquitous in our highways is 7% to 15% cement by total weight.  All of this concrete is susceptible to the freeze and thaw cycle as well as general wear and tear.  Anything that can be done to reduce the carbon footprint of concrete by increasing the times between repairs and replacement would be a major win for both the concrete industry and sustainability movement.

This is great news:

Northwestern [University] engineer Surendra Shahand and his team are adapting cutting-edge technology to improve a decidedly low-tech substance by infusing concrete with carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes are strong, flexible pipe-like arrangements of carbon atoms too small to be seen by most microscopes.
…
“We use 2 tons per capita per year of concrete, can you imagine that?” Shah said. Worldwide, that translates into nearly 12 billion tons of concrete per year. And, as countries such as China and India continue to develop, that amount will almost certainly go up.
…
That’s where Shah’s work comes in. At the atomic scale, concrete looks like a bunch of tennis balls packed together. The chemical reactions that take place between cement and water create nanovoids, or spaces, between the balls. This means that chips, cracks and potholes actually start at the nanoscale.
…
Using carbon nanotubes would make the concrete nearly impenetrable, greatly extending the lifespan of roads, bridges and buildings.

“If you can make concrete very impermeable, so that salt doesn’t go through, then you can extend the life to a hundred years rather than 20,” Shah said.

Not surprisingly, this new technology isn’t cheap. But when that higher price tag is spread out over a much longer lifespan, it could become cost-effective. And this doesn’t factor in the reduced cost to the environment.

“We have to include all of this, not only the material cost,” Shah said.

Continue reading

As stated, the technology is expensive, but sounds very promising.  And frankly, we have grown accustomed to cheap materials only because they do not include the true, long term negative externalities, so some sort of Pigovian tax to cover these negative consequences doesn’t strike me as particularly bad. From this point of view, the extra cost of the nanotube concrete might be worth it but everyone knows that only the truly committed would be willing to pay the extra upfront costs. Luckily, prices should be expected to come down as the industry accepts the product, production figures rise, and marginal costs fall.

This is absolutely fantastic. Now road builders and municipal governments that claim to stand behind causes of environmental justice and sustainability have an incredible framework from which to base their design and build decisions.

“Greenroads is a collection of sustainability best practices that apply to roadway design and construction. These best practices are divided into two types: required and voluntary. Required best practices are those that must be done as a minimum in order for a roadway to be considered a Greenroad. These are called “Project Requirements,” of which there are 11. Voluntary best practices are those that may optionally be included in a roadway project. These are called “Voluntary Credits”. Each Voluntary Credit is assigned a point value (1‐5 points) depending upon its impact on sustainability. Currently, there are 37 Voluntary Credits totaling 108 points. Greenroads also allows a project or organization to create and use its own Voluntary Credits (called “Custom Credits”), subject to approval of Greenroads, for a total of 10 more points, which brings the total available points to 118.”

The Required Credits are broken up into:

• Environmental Review Process – Perform and document a comprehensive environmental review of the roadway project.
• Lifecycle Cost Analysis
• Lifecycle Inventory – Incorporate energy and emissions information into the decision‐making process for pavement design alternatives.
• Quality Control – to monitor and improve construction quality as well as personnel and their responsibility and qualifications. This includes all subcontractors.
• Noise Mitigation - Reduce or eliminate annoyance or disturbance to surrounding neighborhoods and environments from road construction noise.
• Waste Management – Create an accounting and management plan for road construction materials.
• Pollution Prevention – Storm water runoff prevention
• Low Impact Development –  “ collection of engineered controls, stormwater management facilities, and other and evelopment BMPs that attempt to mimic pre‐development hydrologic conditions by emphasizing infiltration, evapotranspiration, or stormwater reuse for long‐term flow control and runoff treatment”
• Pavement Management System – a “process of maintaining, upgrading and operating a particular pavement or network of pavements”
• Site Maintenance Plan – Plan to manage and implement road repair and maintenance, including cracking, storm water system cleaning, vegetation, snow/ice control, traffic control, and general trash collection.
• Education Outreach – the promotion of public, agency, and stakeholder awareness of the roadway sustainability activities, including potentially: technical presentations, heavily documented case studies, or permanent signs giving public notice of the road’s certification level.

Voluntary Credits are broke up into:

• Pavement Technologies
• Access & Equity
• Materials & Resources
• Construction Activities
• Environment & Water

The current version of the system notably includes and excludes a number of things:

“Decisions regarding the location, type, timing, feasibility or other planning level ideas are excluded. […] these decisions are often too complex or political to be adequately defined by a point system.”

This is a notable exception as the position of a roadway effects more than traffic, it also affects animal migration patterns, the temperature and conditions of local water, urban heat island effects.  But the organizers are right to cite political concerns and the feasibility of creating a ratings framework for such a thing.  Also, long term maintenance and preservation efforts cannot be verified so any credits given for those plans exist solely as a promise to perform.

But foot and bike paths in the roadway project are considered and that is going to help the push towards complete streets and intermodal transportation.

The perfect cannot be allowed to be the enemy of the good and this is an absolutely phenomenal start. This is exactly the sort of precedent setting event and standards setting body that the road building industry needs.  Just as LEED has become part of the building engineering and construction lexicon, hopefully Greenroads will quickly rise to the forefront of transportation officials and builder’s minds.

From The Guardian:

“We are trying to be very inclusive and address the range of roadway projects,” says Steve Muench, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington. “For example, in an urban project you might spend a lot of time and effort building a surface that lasts decades with minimum maintenance or reduces tyre noise. In a rural environment, you might be more focused on treating stormwater and including wildlife crossings.”

The Greenroads system already has the support of five US state departments of transport and the University is following 15 case study projects to see how its ratings system affects energy usage, carbon footprint and – where the rubber hits the road – cost. “We think it may cost a little more upfront but if you look at the total lifecycle cost of that road, you’ll be miles ahead,” says Muench. “I look at what has happened with green buildings. It started out as completely voluntary but it’s evolved over the last decade and now nearly 300 government and education agencies have policies that all their new buildings must be LEED-certified. In that sense, it’s no longer voluntary, it’s no longer an option: it’s required. With Greenroads, we want to push the industry in the right direction.”

The complete document outlining the key concepts and credit ratings can be downloaded here:

http://www.greenroads.us/files/84.pdf

A 2008 Sept/Oct ASTM news letter is another good read on why this credit system is needed:

http://www.astm.org/SNEWS/SO_2008/bryce_so08.html

[i] Muench, S.T., Anderson, J.L., Hatfield, J.P., Koester, J.R., & Söderlund, M. et al. (2010). Greenroads Rating System v1.0. (J.L. Anderson and S.T. Muench, Eds.). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.

A complete street might require: new sidewalks, repaved lanes, and special lanes for busses. All of which requires aggregate rock, cement or asphalt.

For something like a major road, the carbon footprint adds up very quickly. In total, a single 1 lane-mile of freeway pavement can consume up to 12,000 tons of raw materials and emit enough pollution in terms of Global Warming Potential to equal 1200 tons of CO2.[i]

Starting from the bottom, beneath of all of the pavement, there typically lays a layer of aggregate rock – the most mined material on earth. Though recycled aggregates are available, most aggregates are fresh. Each ton of that rock must be hauled in diesel truck and then spread over the sight using special equipment, burning hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel, releasing tons of emissions and putting excess strain on construction budgets. Per cubic meter (which weighs about 2.2 tons), this is will be the most environmentally friendly layer but will still contain 15.8kg of CO².[ii] That doesn’t sound like a lot until you realize that given a subbase 8 meters wide (2 lanes), and .2 meters deep, per mile this adds up to 89,695 pounds of CO². That’s 20 metric tons of global warming causing pollution per lane per mile just from the road’s foundational layer.

Next, there’s the paving, the really dirt part.

Paving with either asphalt concrete or cement concrete requires a number of diesel-burning construction machinery such as concrete mixer trucks, asphalt pavers, and vibrating rollers. Per ton of material, concrete requires .5 gallons of diesel, hot mix asphalt requires 2.9. [iii]

According to the Athena study, at installation asphalt containing 20% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) will posses about 118 pounds of CO2 per ton (1 cubic meter weighs 2420 kg and posses 129.74 kg of embodied CO2).

The other option, concrete paving, is much more energy-intensive during the construction process. The industry as a whole employs .1% of the US labor force but generates 1.5% – 2.0% of all US CO2 emissions.[iv]^,[v] One report found that that to produce and lay down enough cement for a 1km (.62 miles), 4 lane highway required the equivalent energy of 1049 tons of oil.[vi] And emissions, when measured in CO2 equivalence (Different green house gasses have different strengths i.e. one kilogram of nitrous oxide, N2O, has as much global warming power as 310kg of CO2) range from 308lbs per ton of cement concrete to 440kg per ton of continues reinforced concrete.[vii]

You can see how this very quickly can add up, especially considering at the US alone builds at least 15,000 lane miles per year.[viii] Finding alternative methodologies is critical if we are to build new roads or to rebuild improperly utilized urban areas in a manner that is congruent with sustainable living.

[ii] http://www.mrmca.com/paving/athena.pdf

[iii] http://www.acpa.org/Downloads/QDs/QD023P%20-%20Conserving%20Fuel%20in%20the%20Road.pdf

[iv] http://www.cement.org/econ/industry.asp

[v] http://www.concretethinker.com/technicalbrief/Concrete-Cement-CO2.aspx

[vi] http://www.lcarc.re.kr/Korean/staff%20list/papers/ASCE_2003.pdf

[vii] http://www.pavementpreservation.org/publications/getfile.php?journal_id=1283

[viii] http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_01.html

Complete Streets

For decades now, it has been painfully obvious that many urban areas are built around the concept of the car as the sole form of transportation. With urban sprawl moving further and further out, walking has become outmoded and the idea of using a bicycle became a quaint, leisurely activity rather than a common-sense method short-distance transportation. Suburban communities are built around hierarchical networks of streets from residential cul-de-sacs to minor collector to major arterials, almost all unfriendly to public transport, and urban residents from Las Vegas to Dallas are stuck living in circumstances better suited for gas guzzling mounds of metal and rubber than flesh and blood.  This is the where the idea of a complete street comes in.

What is a “complete street?” As defined by the National Complete Streets Coalition, it is a concept by which streets are “designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street.”  In a dense urban area, this would be a street that contains: wide sidewalks with frequent crossing opportunities and pedestrian signals; easy access to public transportation; lanes for cars, busses, and bicycles; and potentially median islands and curb extensions on roads more than 2 lanes wide in each direction. [i]

An area built around multi-modal transportation methods allows districts to develop into communities. It is a wholehearted push away from endless miles of road and thousand-car parking lots and toward lively, vibrant business districts. Frankly put, it is an attempt to bring some humanity back to our cities.

Why do we need Complete Streets?

Some interesting facts to note:

Bicycles: In Portland, Oregon, from 1991 to 2008, the bicycle network was expanded from 79 to 275 miles. The end result is that ridership along the city’s four main bridges increased by 490%.  And despite the thousands of new riders, with all these new bike lanes, there were only 30 more crashes in 2007 versus 1991.[ii] New York City is already home to 120,000 cyclists per day, but has yet to build some 800 of its proposed 900 mile bicycle network.[iii] The benefits of a complete bicycle path system combined with its already massive public transportation system would be incredible, producing a potential annual savings of $1,100 per motorist, along with substantial health benefits. [iv]

Pedestrian access: The statistics for walking in America are just ludicrous. The federal National Household Transportation Survey found that despite the fact that 28% of all metropolitan trips are less than one mile long, 65% of  are made by automobile. Americans have come to rely on 3500 pounds of metal and glass to replace what should be a 15 minute walk.  Could this be in some way related to the fact that the country’s fastest growing cities are in the South West?[v] With the average summer temperature in Dallas is 96° F, and a 105° F in Phoenix, walking even a mile can pose a serious health risk. [vi]^{, [vii]}

And of course research confirms the obvious – that a greater ability to walk down streets would lead more people to lead their cars behind.  In one Transportation Research Board study, in areas with sidewalks, safe crossings, and reduced vehicle speeds, more children are likely to walk to school. Unsurprisingly, “the proportion of arterials and collectors with sidewalks along them proved to have the most significant influence on walking.” [viii]

Access to public transportation: Like walking and cycling, along with reducing overall pollution rates (by cutting annual oil consumption by 1.4 billion gallons), access to public transit also improves traffic conditions and decreases economic losses. The Texas Transportation Institute concluded that of the top 85 cities in the country, “congestion caused 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel, for a total cost of $63 billion … In New York, where public transportation is widely available, only 14.0 percent of consumer expenditures are for transportation. In contrast, in the Phoenix area … consumer expenditures for transportation are 21.5 percent.”[ix]

So what does a complete street do?

• So what exactly happens when populations have greater access to all modes of transportation?
• Healthy activities like walking and cycling are promoted
• Heavier pedestrian and public transportation traffic creates new, denser commercial areas, creating vibrant, healthy communities
• Excessive consumption of fossil fuels for transportation is discouraged
• Traffic on major arteries is relieved
• The environment becomes safer as cars slow down and crossing the street becomes safer
• Environmental conditions improve as less energy is wasted on driving cars longer distances

Wonderful before & after photos of complete streets can be found on the National Complete Street Coalition’s Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/completestreets/

What do we see? Shaky dirt paths have turned into safer and wider paved streets; bus stops exist where there was no access to public transportation; there bike lanes and safe crosswalks. What exists is neighborhood revitalization.

But a complete street, focused on creating environmentally sustainable urban areas should also be made of environmentally sound materials, to be discussed in future posts.

*Many thanks to the National Complete Streets Coalition for much of the reference data used in this post.

The coalition also accepts donations.

[ii] http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=217489 [11mb PDF]

[iii] http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/transportation/20060718/16/1910/

[iv] http://nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bike/home.shtml

[v] http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/26/real_estate/Metropolitan_Population/index.htm

[vi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas#Climate

[vii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix,_Arizona#Climate

[viii] Ewing, R. Will Schroeer, William Greene. “School Location and Student Travel: Analysis of Factors Affecting Mode Choice.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1895, TRB, 2004, pp 55–63.            [http://www.icfi.com/Markets/Transportation/doc_files/school-location.pdf]

[ix] http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/congestion.pdf

Gardner could not be more right about the timing: on February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocating almost $27 billion to rebuilding America’s transportation infrastructure. This investment will potentially translate into thousands of new transportation projects.

Additionally, concerns over climate change and U.S. dependence on foreign oil has pushed government urban planners to develop new green standards and guidelines. This in turn has pushed everybody to develop and implement new green technologies.    Today’s planners and road builders must confront environmentally sensitive issues that involve air, water, and land use along with building materials and energy use.

Key Green Road Issues

Recycling/Reusing. While the U.S. currently recycles about 90% of used asphalt each year, over 300 million tons of virgin materials is still mined for use in the recycled mix. Currently, there can be a tradeoff between the amount of recycled material used, its cost, and the durability of a roadbed. Then there is the question of just how recyclable are the recycled materials?

Cost. “The cost of building a road is not reflected fully in the price of materials,” says Gardner. He explains that “the total cost of mining virgin materials, for instance, involves not only the cost of materials and labor, but also the environmental cost at the mining site, the environmental costs (such as air pollution and its associated health care costs) of transporting these materials to the building site, and the environmental costs of building the equipment to mine and transport material and build the roads.” Research is underway in both industry and government to access the true cost of these environmental externalities as a function of different recycle materials and recycle techniques to better develop “green standards” that will effectively manage both costs and road durability.

“The first green roads will probably start with small housing developments and municipalities because developers and local developers have already seen the benefits of green building construction,” says Gardner. However, as the benefits and cost-savings begin to be realized on a bigger scale, Gardner expects that companies who are early adaptors and innovators of green standards will become tomorrow’s leaders in the industry.