MIPS Project Detail:
Company
Company Description:
Global Resource Recyclers is a pavement contractor committed to manufacturing a paving product that is both environmentally friendly and economically efficient. The product is a Foam-Stabilized Base (FSB) commercially known as “green mix foamed asphalt.” The product is made through a carbon-neutral “cold mix” process and is manufactured using one-hundred-percent recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), with small amounts of hot bitumen, portland cement and water. When blended together, the materials produce an ambient temperature road base material. FSB, unlike conventional hot mix asphalt (HMA), does not require virgin aggregate or large quantities of natural gas and electricity. Besides the environmental benefits over traditional HMA, the product significantly reduces cost, is easy to install, and has similar structural features and benefits.
MIPS Project
Carbon Emission Reductions from FSB
Project #
5014
|
MIPS Round
50
|
Starting Date:
Aug 2012
MIPS Project Challenge:
The goal of this MIPS project was to quantify the environmental and cost savings of the Foam-Stabilized Base product versus conventional paving products.
Project Scope:
Researchers were slated to calculate emissions for energy consumption during the material extraction, transportation and manufacture of HMA. This was to be executed by a bottom-up analysis to identify baseline emissions for HMA. They then tracked the carbon emission reductions from the use of FSB in pavement construction. Using data on the observed reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from using the FSB, they then developed a new environmental assessment protocol through the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) to register carbon credits, identify potential trading schemes, and generate new business revenue from carbon reduction.
Results:
This project quantified the emission reduction from the use of FSB in pavement construction. The results from this project helped in acquiring more than $230,000 in funding for the research, including $140,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation National Transportation Center and $90,000 in continued support from GRR to UMD faculty. This project, as well as all follow-on studies, produced a methodology for FSB emission credit, a mobile app for green pavement design, and a provisional patent. Since 2006, approximately 900 jobs across MD/DC/VA have been completed on commercial parking lots and roadways using over 85,000 tons of Green Mix foamed asphalt.
Since the completion of the MIPS project, the team has been in collaboration with the transportation center at UMD and developed a mobile app, called PaveNext, which can automatically optimize pavement design for cost efficiency and environmental benefits.
Principal Investigator:
Qingbin
Cui
Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project Manager:
Chandra
Akisetty
P.E.
Technologies:
Environmental Technology / Science
