The Constructions of Deduction

Soon our roads and bridges will be paying back the energy used to build them. Power Roads are on their way! We've all heard about 'power houses' -- buildings that in the course of their lifetimes generate more energy than they consume. Now is the time to launch 'power roads'. The idea is that over the course of their lifetimes all constructions, including roads and bridges, should generate more energy than they consume. First of all, the energy used during their construction must be reduced. Then the finished roads and bridges themselves can generate energy. Solar panels can be installed on bridges, wind turbines can be integrated into the constructions, and we can extract energy from the currents and waves in the water below the bridges. All with the aim of making net consumption zero. Utopia? "No -- we're well on our way," says Berit Laanke at SINTEF Building and Infrastructure. New project The Norwegian Public Roads Agency (Statens Vegv...

Outside of the Consortium Library on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus is a concrete slab 8 feet wide and 20 feet long. It looks like your average sidewalk, but it could potentially hold the key to solving a perennial Alaska transportation problem: road ruts. For the past 15 years -- and the past eight in Alaska -- UAA professor of civil engineering   Osama Abaza  has been developing a road surface that can stand up to Alaska’s road-rut problem. The concrete slab at UAA is the first practical test of the solution. Abaza plans to work with the Alaska Department of Transportation to install a 180-foot lane of the concrete on Abbott Road next summer. “I’m not going to say we have the magic solution, but we’re trying,” Abaza said in a September interview. Abaza is branching out from the traditional asphalt used to construct Alaska’s roads by considering concrete. The idea is that concrete is a more durable material than asphalt, but les...