Summary Reader Response Draft #4

In the article “The Self-Healing Concrete…” Spinks (2015) stated that Hendrik Jonkers, a microbiologist at Delft University, has innovated self-healing concrete and discussed whether the industry was keen on picking up the technology. This technology works by embedding 'self-activating limestone-producing bacteria into building material', thus lowering maintenance and repair costs for buildings (Spinks, 2015) . However, Spinks mentioned that the innovation could not cure 'wide cracks or potholes on roads' as the technology was only limited for cracks up to 0.8mm wide. Spinks added that a cubic-meter of SHC also cost €100 as opposed to the standard €70. These disadvantages would be reason enough for the industry to shun the use of such technology. According to Spinks, John Alker, director of policy at the UK Green Building Council, believed that flaunting the benefits of new green technology would make its adoption successful, albeit acknowledging the stubbornness of the construction industry in adopting new ideas. Spinks said that Jonkers acknowledged this problem, and after doing a concrete-canal project in Ecuador, he was optimistic that the industry would come to see the benefit of his innovation. The points made in the article constantly mentioned the high price of the self-healing concrete. Spinks consistently highlighted and gave strong emphasis on the high price of SHC. However, at the same time, it fails to elucidate that the high price of the self-healing concrete was due to the technology being in its infancy and the lack of adoption and mass production of the product itself.

One of the areas that was not explained when Spinks discussed about the high price of SHC was that self-healing concrete is still in its relative infancy*, and proponents have a lot of work to do before it becomes a viable and reasonable economical choice for construction companies (Cembureau, 2019). Compared to the self-healing version, normal concrete costs considerably less to manufacture. Bacteria, agents and materials needed to concoct the self-healing concrete would make the cost of it higher. As the technology is still relatively new, it can only cure cracks up to 0.8mm wide (Spinks, 2015). This gives self-healing concrete limited usage, which only serves to further drive up its production costs. Due to the aforementioned reasons, the technology has not garnered widespread adoption. As it is not well known and is in its infancy, SHC is produced in smaller batches and is not in mass production, making its cost inevitably higher

Two other causes of the high prices of self-healing concrete, which the article did not expand on are the extreme lack of acceptance (Shannon, 2017) and lack of mass production (Damian, 2011) of the commodity. As the technology has not been adopted by the industry, the production cost of SHC will remain sky-high. This is evident from the low market size of SHC only valuing itself at USD 24.60 billion (“Self healing concrete market,” 2019). As of now, the technology is a long way from becoming a sustainable alternative to concrete. However, as the technology advances, this will see an increase in adoption of the product ("Self-healing concrete,"2019). With time, the technology can be introduced to more complex structures and extreme environments, thus stimulating construction companies to further adopt this technology ("Self-healing concrete,"2019).  The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of SHC is also expected to by 37% from 2019 to 2027 (“Self healing concrete market,” 2019). If this happens, we would see self-healing concrete being produced on an industrial scale, which would drastically bring down the cost of self-healing concrete (Damian, 2011).

In conclusion, the price of self-healing concrete is high not due to its intrinsic values, but due to reasons stated above. I feel that the article failed to mention these points, and thus gave an unfair assessment of self-healing concrete, as the author kept emphasising on its high cost. Self-healing concrete would be a sustainable and viable replacement for concrete in the future, if and only if the issues surrounding it were to be resolved. 

(662 words)

References

Cembureau. (2019, January 23).  Self-healing concrete – the friendly bacteria that fixes cracks.  http://useofcement.cembureau.eu/2019/01/23/self-healing-concrete-friendly-bacteria-fixes-cracks/

*Damian, A. (2011, March). Self-healing concrete. Ingenia. https://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/eb2f64de-2493-4dfc-9adc-3ae8e13ca477

Self-healing Concrete Market Size & Share Report, 2020-2027. (2020, October). https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/self-healing-concrete-market.

Shannon, M. (2017, November 02). Dutch scientist Invents self-healing concrete with bacteria. Journal of Commerce.  https://canada.constructconnect.com/joc/news/infrastructure/2015/09/dutch-scientist-invents-self-healing-concrete-with-bacteria-1010047w

Spinks, R. (2015, June 29). The self-healing concrete that can fix its own cracks. Ingenia. https://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/eb2f64de-2493-4dfc-9adc-3ae8e13ca477