Reducing Global Emissions by 1.5% with Kelpcrete

Regenerative Studies Research Synthesis. Fourth Year. Group Project

Objective: Improve humanity’s environmental footprint by finding existing sustainable technologies and creating practical applications for them in the built environment.

Team: Roman Huante, Kristen Lorentzen, Juan Ruiz, Christopher Smith

Advisor: Dr. Eric Carbonnier, PhD., AIA, Cal Poly Pomona Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies

(Photo credits: The headline collage above contains a photo of Santiago Calatrava’s Gare do Oriente)

An Exercise of Maximizing Environmental Impact with Minimal Complexity

Kelpcrete is a mixture of kelp and concrete, and it has the ability to dramatically reduce global carbon emissions as a substitute to traditional concrete. Here’s how it works:

Concrete contributes to 8% of global carbon emissions.

Portland cement, a binding agent in concrete, contributes to 90% of concrete’s emissions.

Raw kelp powder, a regenerative resource, can substitute up to 20% of the Portland cement in concrete with an increase in thermal performance and a minimal reduction in structural performance. This is possible because kelp contains a naturally occurring polymer known as alginate, which has binding properties that can partially substitute the binding properties of Portland cement.

This simple switch can lower the overall carbon footprint of concrete by 18%, reducing global emissions by 1.5%.

An Exercise of Research Synthesis

Kelpcrete isn’t a new concept, and we didn’t come up with it. Sometimes we wish we did though because it’s a brilliant idea. However, there’s one problem. No one’s ever heard of it, and no one seems to know what to do with it. That’s the purpose of this research paper. We have taken kelpcrete, extrapolated it into a narrative of global carbon footprint reduction, and found ways that it can be quantified and applied in the built environment so that we can raise awareness about it as a viable building material that can be brought to market.