Month: October 2011

Sources: Lafarge North America, Reston, Va.; Staff reports During an October 4 open house that drew 500 students, architects and engineers to its Edmonton precast plant, Lafarge announced participation in a local Habitat for Humanity NetZero energy duplex project. The producer will continue to spotlight the project—the first of its kind in Canada—on October 6, opening its Calgary precast operation…

Source: Holcim (US) Inc., Waltham, Mass. Holcim (US) announced that four of its plants have earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) prestigious Energy Star. The plants are: Ste. Genevieve in Bloomsdale, Mo.; Holly Hill in Holly Hill, S.C.; Portland in Florence, Colo.; and Devil’s Slide in Morgan, Utah.

Source: U.S. Concrete, Inc., Houston With countless industry resources, publishers, blogs and social media communities on the internet, the ability to find a single point for expertise and opinions that integrates the best information on green construction was the driving force behind U.S. Concrete’s launch of www.concrete-greenbuilding.com.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Va. Total shipments of portland and blended cement in the United States and Puerto Rico were about 6.8 million mt in July 2011, according to the USGS. This was slightly higher compared with shipments for July 2010. Total shipments for the year through July were approximately 38.8 million mt, unchanged compared to the same period…

After one of Silicon Valley’s biggest manhunts, the man responsible for an 4 a.m. shooting spree on October 5 at Lehigh Hanson’s Permanente cement plant in Cupertino, Calif., was shot down in a hail of gunfire early on the morning of October 6 in Sunnyvale.

Sources: Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill.; National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Silver Spring, Md. Today’s bipartisan passage of “Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011” (H.R. 2681) by the U.S. House of Representatives was overwhelmingly called a triumph by construction industry leaders. A year-long effort to reform what they believed would be job-killing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations on the…

Source: Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill. The need to decrease energy usage and subsequent emissions from the building sector has been at the forefront of U.S. green movement. To address this, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Concrete Sustainability Hub conducted a life-cycle assessment (LCA) study to evaluate and improve the environmental impact and study how the “dual…

Source: Texas Industries Inc., Dallas TXI reported financial results for the quarter ended Aug. 31, 2011. Results for the quarter indicated a net loss of $7.4 million or $.27 per share. Results for the quarter ended Aug. 31, 2010, were a loss of $23.7 million or $.85 per share and included an after-tax charge of $18.0 million or $.65 per…

Source: ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa. A new standard, ASTM C1738, Practice for High-Shear Mixing of Hydraulic Cement Pastes, provides for preparing a mixture of cement paste that will simulate the shearing experienced by the cement paste in concrete, and was developed by Subcommittee C01.22 on Workability, part of ASTM’s Committee C01 on Cement.