A new and improved variety of permeable pavement developed in the U.K. called Topmix Permeable has been turning heads. This new concrete, from Lafarge Tarmac, could potentially be a very useful tool in combating urban flash flooding from sudden, heavy storms – the type that are likely to become increasingly common because of climate change. In the U.S., stormwater routinely…
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A Road that Charges Electric Cars
By Mark S. Kuhar How about a road that charges your electric car while you are driving on it? Sound far-fetched? Off-road trials of the technology needed to power electric and hybrid vehicles on England’s major roads are due to take place later this year. The trials are the first of their kind and will test how the technology would…
Read MoreIf You Build It . . .
By Mark S. Kuhar Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Middle Earth will find this news utterly fascinating. An ambitious group of architects have launched a crowdfunding campaign in the hope of building a life-size replica of the city of Minas Tirith, the heavily-fortified capital of Gondor that is built into the rocks on the side of a mountain in…
Read MoreStones to the Rescue
The drought in California has provided aggregates producers with a new market. Replacing front lawns with rocks. Since July 1, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California has paid just over $34 million in turf-removal rebates, according to the Los Angeles Times. It has given the go-ahead for an additional $120 million in turf-removal applications. The agency offers a…
Read MoreUsing Water And Air To Run Your Loader
By Mark S. Kuhar Is it possible to make synthetic diesel fuel using only water and air? Researchers at Audi not only think so, they are doing just that. While the technology has only been tested on automobiles, can front-end loaders and haul trucks be far behind? The German automaker announced it has created the first batch of liquid “e-diesel”…
Read MoreGuest Editorial: Congress Falls Short on ’16 Transportation Budget Resolution
Just about any driver who has hit a pothole or sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic knows that our nation’s roads, bridges and highways are in bad shape. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our nation’s roads a D+ grade. There are 10,000 bridges in the U.S. that are so old that they qualify for Medicare and, yet, are still bearing…
Read MoreA Book About Modern Earthmoving Marvels
By Mark S. Kuhar When you are in the construction media, you get to know many editors from other publications. One of the good guys in the construction media is Frank Raczon, senior editor of Construction Equipment magazine, a Scranton Gillette Communications publication. Frank recently co-authored a book called “Caterpillar: Modern Earthmoving Marvels,” for Motorbooks. For this book, he details…
Read MoreThe Most Amazing Hotel Ever
By Mark S. Kuhar A quarry is a rather unusual destination for a five-star hotel. Perhaps that’s what makes the concept of the Songjiang Quarry Hotel in Tianmashan, Songjiang, Shanghai, China, so awe-inspiring. Atkins, one of the world’s most innovative design, engineering and project-management consultancies in the world, won an international design competition for this hotel and resort in August…
Read MoreTragedy Averted in Maryland
Since AGG1 is taking place in Baltimore this year, it’s a good time to mention that an incident occurred recently in Maryland that ought to serve as a wake-up call to all of Congress to finalize a bill for the repair and replacement of our roads and bridges. A piece of concrete fell from the I-495/I-95 (Capital Beltway) bridge in…
Read MoreResurrecting the Best 25
By Mark S. Kuhar By dusting off old advertisements, you’ll find the Best 25 Tracklayer was capable of “doing the work of 12 horses and three men.” Nowhere did it mention anything about how the 5,200-lb. tracklayer could go airborne, but that’s exactly what a long-lost Best 25 actually did. The story begins in December 2013 with a hiker in…
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