Masonry Magazine February 2011 Page. 52
INDUSTRY NEWS
who are sensitive or allergic to mold, as well as the respiratory health of all.
MIT Research to Set Life-Cycle Assessment Standard
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has released preliminary research findings that will help set a new standard in life-cycle assessment (LCA) modeling. The studies, which are part of an ongoing research initiative at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, will quantify the cradle-to-grave environmental costs of paving and building materials, and will ultimately result in the most comprehensive LCA model produced to-date.
According to MIT professor and research team leader John Ochsendorf, the expanded life-cycle window 50 years for paving materials and 75 years for building materials - combined with the level of detailed analysis conducted on the use phase of structures and pavements will distinguish MIT's latest research. Initial reports have shown the importance of including the use phase, with MIT researchers finding that more than 90 percent of residential building life-cycle carbon emissions and up to 85 percent of highway pavement emissions occur during this period.
MIT's ongoing work on measuring the life-cycle carbon emissions of these materials is scheduled to be completed by August 2011. The environmental findings will then be supplemented by economic analyses in 2011 to provide the most accurate assessment of the economic and environmental impacts for buildings and pavements yet produced.
Publisher Strengthens Commitment to Safety of Spanish-Speaking Workers
MANCOMM, a national safety and compliance publisher, is now the official, exclusive distributor of Reglas Press LLCa provider of safety materials for bilingual English/Spanish trainers and companies that employ Spanish-speaking workers. With this development, MANCOMM has strengthened its commitment to the safety of America's Spanish-speaking construction workforce.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that in 2006, an estimated 19.6 million workers in the United States were Hispanic, 56 percent of whom were foreign born (Spanish speakers). During 2003-2006, the occupational-injury casualty rate for foreign-born Hispanic workers was 5.9 per 100,000 workers, compared with a rate of 3.5 for U.S.-born Hispanic workers. Also, 67 percent of the deceased Hispanic workers were foreign born.
The report also states that during 2003-2006, the construction industry employed the most Hispanics who died from work-related injuries. Foreign-born Hispanic workers were at especially high risk. The report noted that "Preventing work-related injury deaths among Hispanics will require...employers to take additional responsibility for providing a safe work environment," and that such an initiative would require "materials that are culturally appropriate and effective for workers who speak different languages."
Previously, MANCOMM published OSHA Construction Fieldbooks that contain safety-compliance content in both English and Spanish. To order Reglas Press products or find out more about MANCOMM, call 800-626-2666, or visit Mancomm.com.
Flawed EPA Coal Ash Analysis
Two years after the Kingston, Tenn., coal ash spill, federal action to regulate coal ash dumps is being held up by concerns that stricter standards would depress markets for coal-ash recycling, Cost-benefit analysis estimates prepared by the US. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claim that coal ash recycling is worth more than $23 billion a year, based on the annual life-cycle benefits of avoiding pollution and reducing energy costs. But there's just one problem: That estimate is more than 20 times higher than the $1.15 billion that the U.S. government's own data shows is the correct bottom-line number, according to a review conducted by the independent and nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice, and the Stockholm Environment Institute's U.S. Center (based at Tufts University).
The flaws in the EPA cost-benefit analysis appear to have escaped scrutiny at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which required EPA to include a weaker coal-ash proposal favored by utilities and some coal ash recyclers. Common sense and past experience indicate that stricter standards for disposal will work to increase, rather than decrease, recycling. But either way, EPA ought not to be intimidated into adopting weak rules based on grossly inflated values for coal ash recycling, the three groups said.
Presented recently by Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice, and the Stockholm Environment Institute, the new EIP analysis (www.environmentalintegrity org) shows that the huge discrepancy is due to several factors, including double counting of pollution reductions that the EPA has already claimed would occur separately under Clean Air Act rules adopted in August 2010, overstated emission levels from cement kilns, and unrealistic assumptions about potential energy savings from reducing energy consumption at cement kilns and gypsum plants.
For example:
* About half of the coal-ash recycling benefits claimed by EPA are based on assumptions that substituting fly ash for 15 percent of U.S. cement production would cut fine particle emissions by more than 26,000 metric tons per year. But the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation has estimated that the entire cement kiln industry releases just over 15,000 metric tons per year, and projected emissions already would decline to about 3,500 metric tons by 2013 when separate Clean Air Act standards for that industry take effect.
* EPA estimated that recycling fly ash in cement kilns saves $4.9 billion in energy costs in the analysis prepared for the coal ash rule. But the Agency's Office of Radiation, in analysis developed to support the separate and more far-reaching Clean Air Act standards, estimated total energy