E20 A Concrete Innovation for Climate Change
The planet is warming at an alarming rate and Mehrdad Mahoutian may have invented one of the solutions that can help slow or stop warming temperatures. Merdad is CTO and Co-founder of Carbicrete which has developed a carbon-negative concrete manunfacturing process.
In this interview, Mehrdad, discusses how he discovered and further developed his new technology, the key aspects of making Carbicrete, and his plans for distributing the new technology in the future. He also talks about his education experience in Iran and Canada, and the failures and success along his academic journey. Finally, Mehrdad shares how carbon-negative technologies can aid in our fight against global warming.
Mehrdad Mahoutian has a Master of Science degree in structural engineering and earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering. While in his Ph.D. program, he developed the technology that has led to the founding of Carbicrete.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
I believe that the future is bright and I see that at the end, again, with the help of the government, with the help of the policy-makers, and with the help of researchers, innovators, and with the help of universities, technologies are going to be developed, and with the push of the governments at the end that climate change is solvable.
Don MacPherson:
A day doesn't go by without a story in the news about how global warming is threatening the planet. Left unaddressed, it will change the lives of everyone on earth within decades. What's the solution? Maybe searching for a single solution is the wrong approach. Maybe the answer is a thousand solutions, a thousand innovations. Today's guest has created one of those innovations. Mehrdad Mahoutian is a co-founder of Carbicrete. They have developed a carbon negative concrete manufacturing process. It actually takes carbon from the atmosphere and puts it in concrete. This is huge since the production of concrete puts up to 5% of all carbon in the atmosphere. This discussion may leave you feeling more optimistic about our ability to address the challenges of global warming.
Mehrdad, welcome to 12 Geniuses.
Mehrdad Mahoutian: Thank you. Thank you for coming here to Montreal.
Don MacPherson:
Let's start out by just talking about your company. You are a co-founder of Carbicrete, is that right?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
That’s right.
Don MacPherson:
And tell us about, how long has Carbicrete been in business?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
It was officially incorporated in July, 2016, but before July, 2016, myself and my business partner, Chris Stern, we were working on the idea of a company for almost one year, one and a half years. So, the whole thing started in 2015, but officially, we registered the company in 2016. So, it’s almost three and a half years, four years.
Don MacPherson:
How did you meet Chris?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
I got my PhD from McGill University Civil Engineering Department. I worked on that project, how to use basically waste material. But after my graduation, I find out that the idea is something revolutionary. It's a good idea. We can use the technology and we can make it work. And that's why I approached the McGill guys, and they introduced Chris to me basically. So, we started our partnership back in 2015. I knew the technology, I knew how concrete works, I knew how carbon capture utilities technologies are. I developed the technology, and at the same time, Chris has a very good background of the business development, marketing, and financing, and all of those things. So, it was a very good matching basically.
Don MacPherson:
And Chris was out in the business community at this point or was he in academia?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Business basically. So, he was spinning off another company before he was doing Carbicrete. So, he was expert in again, business development and financing and marketing.
Don MacPherson:
And you said you have an interest in waste materials or you were studying how to use waste materials to manufacture things. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
So, it was part of my PhD project. The idea was to find waste material or byproduct material that can react with carbon dioxide. So, I tried different waste material, iron slag, steel slag, and I tried all of those things to see which one reacts with carbon dioxide. After lots of testing, after lots of trial and errors, I figured out that steel slag has the capacity to react with carbon dioxide. And when it happened, we noticed that, okay, when steel slag reacts with carbon dioxide, it generates some strengths. Strengths development happen. And we said, “Okay, let's then use that benefit to reduce some construction materials.” And that's why we said that, “Okay, let's remove all of the cements from concrete and then replace it steel slag. So, that's why the idea. First, we figured out that a steel slag is a material that react with CO2, and also we figure out that it has binding properties, it can be activated by carbon dioxide, and at the end we can produce some construction material.
Don MacPherson:
It's interesting. I think cement and concrete are used interchangeably by a lot of people, but there is a distinction. Maybe you could talk about what that distinction is.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Yeah, definitely. So, cement is the main ingredients for production of concrete. Concrete is a mix of few raw materials like aggregate water, cement, admixture. So, the combination of cement, water, aggregates is something that is called concrete. Let's imagine you want to make a cake. For making a cake, you need flour, you need eggs, you need sugar, milk, and something like that. In this example, concrete is cake and cement is sugar, let's say.
Don MacPherson:
And concrete is a very high producer of CO2, right?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Indirectly, basically. The main CO2 emitter is coming from cement production. When you produce cement, lots of CO2 gets emitted into the atmosphere. That's why concrete is a bit nasty, not because of itself, because of the cement. So, cement production is a very energy intensive process, is a very CO2 intensive material as well. Imagine that production of one ton of cement emits about one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. It’s huge. The ratio is one by one. So, one ton of cement, one ton of CO2. In total, CO2 production accounts for about 5% of total CO2 emission in the world. Imagine only one industry, only one material, which is cement, accounts for 5% of the total CO2 emission. So, it's a very, I can say that, not very clean material.
That's why over the past several decades, three, four decades basically, 30, 40 years, so there have been some attempt to reduce the cement consumption and cement production. Because if you look at the concrete industry, imagine for each person a year, about one ton of concrete is cast and produced. So, it’s produced in a very larger scale…
Don MacPherson:
For each person on Earth…
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
On Earth.
Don MacPherson:
One ton of concrete is produced…
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Every year. Exactly. For the bridges, for the buildings, for the foundations, for the dams, all of those. It's a very huge number.
Don MacPherson:
That's why the production of concrete using cement is accounting for about 5% of CO2 emitted.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Exactly, exactly. Lots of cement also is produced. Exactly.
Don MacPherson:
What problem is Carbicrete solving.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
So, we are not just solving one problem. Our technology, Carbicrete technology is a revolutionary technology. Why? Because we completely replace cement with steel slag. So, no longer we are using Portland cement in production of concrete. Why? That's the benefit because cement production emits carbon dioxide. So, we reduce the CO2 emission into the atmosphere. That's one benefit. The second one, we are using waste material of steel manufacturers, steel slag.
Don MacPherson:
You said base materials?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Waste. Waste material.
Don MacPherson:
Oh, waste.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Byproduct waste. Byproduct materials. So, we are using and utilizing byproduct materials of steel manufacturers. In most cases, those byproduct materials end up in the landfill or there is no significant application for those materials. So, we are solving the steel manufacturer and the steel plants issues. And the third one, which is also is very important benefit of our technology, and we solve that problem, is that we capture carbon dioxide into our product. So, we permanently capture and put it into our product. And by that one also we can reduce the CO2 emissions. So, CO2 emissions reduction is coming from two factors. First, cement is gone. We do not use cement. And at the same time, the [inaudible 0:08:32] sequestrate inside our product.
Don MacPherson:
So, you can say that this is a carbon-negative concrete product.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Exactly. We have done a lifecycle analysis and also we have asked another third-party consulting firm to do the lifecycle analysis for us to see how it looks like. Is carbon negative? Is carbon positive? Is neutral? And we considered the whole lifespan, let's say from capturing CO2 to production of concrete, and to the end of lifespan. And at the end, it was figured out that the whole thing is carbon negative. The amount of CO2 that we produced during the production, during the capturing and during the whole thing is less than how much we put inside the concrete.
Don MacPherson:
This must be very well received by governments around the world. What sort of reaction are you getting?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
All positive. All positive. Not from governments, from the industry, from manufacturers, and from even end user, the people. Because imagine our product is, let's say you are concrete maker. It's good for you. Why? Because the material cost would be cheaper compared to the conventional concrete. So, it's good for you. You can produce at a lower price. It's good for the end user because our concrete is stronger. It has higher mechanical properties compared to the conventional concrete, and has better durability properties compared to the conventional concrete. And basically, you can install it there and it's going to last for longer time. Higher resistance for freeze and thaw and other durability things. And at the same time, it's cleaner because it sequestrate CO2, absorbs CO2 and is cleaner. That's why for that reason, government, industry, end user, people, everyone like the idea.
Don MacPherson:
And what's the potential for this technology? Is this something that could be rolled out globally or something that really is limited to where we are here in Canada?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Definitely, we have start from Canada. But definitely we have plan to go globally to the U.S., India, China, those countries that they are producing steel and they're producing lots of CO2. So, definitely we are not going to stay here. We're going to expand it to other countries because the potential is huge.
Don MacPherson:
Yeah, this idea of waste being used to produce things is very interesting, I think.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Exactly. So, imagine you take the waste material and we converted to some value-added products. And imagine CO2, I mean is… I mean, in the past several years, CO2 generally is considered as a liability. If you are a manufacturer or if you are a government or anyone, CO2 is considered as a liability. So, now we try to convert that liability to an asset. For us, CO2 is not liability. We like CO2. We convert CO2 to some value-added product and we sell it to the market.
Don MacPherson:
You need it.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
We need it.
Don MacPherson:
That's really interesting. And I think that's quite exciting for the future is people like you seeing waste as an asset. What was the process from idea to I have a viable or we have a viable product?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
It took several years. Lots of disappointing moments. Lots of good moments. Maybe you do not believe it, but it happened with some accidents. Again, I tried to work on several byproduct materials. I received samples from different factories, from different industries, and I worked with all of those things. So, I worked with fly ash, it didn't work. I worked with silica fume, it didn't work. I worked with wood ash, it didn't work. I start working with steel slag. I used steel slag, and still it did not work at that time. That result in low compressive strengths, low CO2 uptake, bad performances, very disappointing. It was in the middle of my thesis and my PhD program. In the lab that I was working, we had a polarizer, and we used that polarizer to make the slags to make it a smaller size.
In the middle of the testing, that machine broke. I mean, I was very angry and disappointed. I mean, I didn't get good result, and now another problem, the machine is broken. It’s going to delay my program for another few months. I mean, I was very disappointed at that time. But I had to deal with it. I tried to fix the machine. I talked to our technician. He said that, “Okay, it's going to take another three months. If you want to fix, forget.” Okay, that's fine. He said, “Okay, let's send out slag to another third-party lab in Ontario, Canada.” So, they’re going to grind it for us because there is no equipment in our lab now. We send it out, shipping, it takes two or three weeks. I got back the materials. I start making concrete and samples.
Suddenly I notice good results are generated. Now I notice that, oh, slag is working now. It's reacting with CO2. We can make concrete, put mechanical properties. And just, I look at the results, I look at the data, and I just noticed that they managed to grind it to a finer size better than what we could do it in the lab. They had a more advanced machinery, advanced polarizer. So, they managed to make it finer compared to what we did in our lab. It was a good accident basically. At the first, I was very irritated, but at the end, it ends up with a very good conclusion. Well, I guess if that accident did not happen, probably I couldn't come up with that idea.
Don MacPherson:
During the two or three years that you were working on this, how many times do you think you failed?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Unfortunately, a lot. Unfortunately, a lot. I mean, specifically in the beginning, it didn't go very well as we expected. And honestly, that's, unfortunately or fortunate, that’s the nature of working with concrete. It’s not a uniform material. If you do something today and repeat it tomorrow with the same thing, you get a completely different result.
Don MacPherson:
During that failure, that series of failures, did you ever consider giving up?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
I was thinking of giving up, but at that time, my concern was… I tried to finish the program. At that time, my concern was if I don't get any good result, how can I defend? How can I finish my program? How can I convince my supervisor that, okay, you have good result, That's fine. You can go ahead. I mean, I wanted to finish my program. That was my priority.
Don MacPherson:
The main objective was to get the PhD.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
That's the only objective that I had at that time. I did not think about patents. I did not think about the company. I did not think about saving the planet. Nothing. Just get the PhD, apply for academic positions or apply for industrial position and leave the university. So, that was my only and main objective at that time.
Don MacPherson:
So, there are going to be people who are listening to this who are creators and innovators and people who want to be creators and innovators. What advice would you give to them when they failed dozens of times and they want to five up?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
I mean, if you want to do something great, I mean, you have to work hard. Definitely in that period, you're going to fail a lot, but you shouldn't give up. But that's the main thing. But it's easy to say, but honestly, it's a bit difficult to do. It's easy to say that, okay, you can fail, you can forget it, you can move on, don't worry, this is happening. Again, it's easy to say, but practically, it hurts. It hurts and sometimes it's painful, but if you want to do something great, if you want to have positive impact in the world, so you have to take those riskers and risks, and those responsibilities.
Don MacPherson:
Who was supporting you? Not necessarily financially, but mentally, emotionally. Did you have family? Did you have friends, your advisor?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Well, definitely, I mean, my wife helped me a lot; my family, my father, my mother, my brother. They helped me a lot. And definitely my supervisor also. His name is Professor Yixin Shao. He's a full professor at McGill University. I mean, he's a very nice guy. Supportive guy. He's a very knowledgeable guy as well. I mean, the family, professors, my former supervisor, I mean all of these guys.
Don MacPherson:
We’re talking to Mehrdad Mahoutian, Chief Technology Officer for Carbicrete. When we come back from our break, Mehrdad will discuss Carbicrete's innovative concrete manufacturing process and how it can contribute to combating global warming.
Hi everybody, this is 12 Geniuses podcast host, Don MacPherson. IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, has said that artificial intelligence is going to change 100% of jobs, 100% of industries, and 100% of professions. AI is just one example of disruptive technology. Other technologies in market or in development will continue to change every aspect of life. At 12 Geniuses, we write, report, and speak about trends shaping the way we live and work. If these trends are important to you, we invite you to follow us on social media. And to book me as a speaker for your next event, contact us at future@12geniuses.com.
We are back with Mehrdad Mahoutian. In part one, we discussed how he created a carbon negative concrete manufacturing process. Now we'll get into how this process can become a standard used around the world and a tool in the battle against global warming.
The type of concrete that you're producing, are they just the blocks or what do you have the capability of producing right now?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
At this time, we have focused on precast concrete product like blocks, like concrete masonry units, but in future we’ll try to cover ready mixed concrete as well. But at this time, we have focused on precast concrete products. What does it mean, precast concrete products? It means that those products that you can produce inside a facility and then you can ship it out to the construction site. So, this is called precast.
Don MacPherson:
And the precast concrete market seems quite large. If you are driving around a city, you see huge bridge supports that must be precast. And you have the capability of doing those?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Yes, I mean, precast market is huge. I mean about 30%, 40% of the total concrete market is precast. And by precast, it means concrete pipes, traffic barrier or new jerseys, paving the stones, blocks, and all of those products basically. So, we have developed some of these precast products and we are trying to develop more, basically.
Don MacPherson:
How is Carbicrete making money or… because you're not doing the manufacturing yourself?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Our business plan is to license the technology to the concrete manufacturers. That's the main way that we can make money out of the business. So, we are not going to establish our own concrete plants, rather than we are going to sell our licenses to the concrete manufacturers. Concrete manufacturers, now they are making concrete with their conventional process. When they adopt our technology, they can produce Carbicrete concrete based on our technology.
Don MacPherson:
What are the barriers to having these concrete manufacturers adopt this?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
They like the idea. Their feedbacks, most of them, I mean all of them are positive. We receive lots of positive feedbacks. The barriers that these guys, I mean the construction guys, most of them are reluctant to change. Most of them are old-fashioned people. They have been doing that business or that process for the last 30, 40 years. They're happy with their revenue. They are okay. And it's difficult for them to make changes. So, it's not like computer science or like computer things or high-tech stuff that every six months, every one year, every two years, they come up with new idea and then they change everything. Concrete industry was there for, again, for a long time. I believe the main barrier is that they are reluctant to change.
Don MacPherson:
What would need to change? What needs to change in the typical plan that's manufacturing concrete?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
They have to do some minor adjustments. So, the majority of the process would remain the same, just few adjustment for the curing process. At the end of the technology, they need to change the curing process. Now they are using steam and heat for curing. Now they have to convert it to CO2 curing. So, they need to do some adjustment.
Don MacPherson:
Is it price prohibitive? Do they need new equipment in order to do this?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Well, it is up to the plants basically. Some cases they have to come up with buy new equipment. In some cases they just need to renovate it and just make some modification then it works for them.
Don MacPherson:
And it would seem to me that government could play a pretty strong role in this, whether it be federal government or local governments to incent these companies to make this change, if it is truly helping the environment. How are you working with governments or communicating with governments in order to get assistance here?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
I mean, we received a major grant from government of Canada last year. There's a program called SDTC, Sustainability Development Technology of Canada. It's a governmental fund. So, we received a major fund to run a pilot plan here in Canada. And we have a very good relationship with government of Canada, government of Quebec. And we have been told that we are going to receive more funding, more support from the government of Quebec as well. So, we have a very good relationship with the government. As you mentioned, that this is some sort of new technology, new era, and without the government helps, and without the help of… I mean, we need policy-makers to help the process, to help the… The carbon capture utilization is relatively a new concept.
And it cannot be publicized without the help of the government. Either it can be through the carbon tags, either it can be through the carbon treaty, carbon trade, or whatever. So, the CO2 producers or emitters should be pushed by someone, otherwise they keep burning fossil fuel, keep emitting CO2 into the atmosphere and they don't care unless someone pushed them.
Don MacPherson:
When you think about waste and how it can be potentially used as a resource, what do you think about outside of concrete and outside of your area of expertise?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
There are plenty of waste materials out there. I mean, it's not just limited to steel slag or plastic. If you look to the aluminum production, they’re producing lots of waste at the end of the day, and mostly there is no application for that. If you look at oil sand in Alberta, in Canada, I mean, at the end there would be lots of funding, there are lots of mess over there. I mean, there are huge potential and there are huge opportunities for converting waste and byproduct to something. There have been lots of research, I mean, ongoing research has been done in the past. I mean the researchers are doing lots of research now and they are performing research in the future. And I'm sure that I see a very positive future basically because now the government, the society, the people has noticed that we have to do something.
I mean, again, if you talk to people or to the government, 100 years ago, no one cares about the environment, no one cares about CO2 regions, no one care about greenhouse gases, no one talk about climate change, no one talk about global warming. But now, everyone has noticed the challenges and has noticed the threats. For that reason, the attentions are there. And again, society, government, everyone knows that they have to do something. I mean, renewable energy is one very huge subject. Energy efficiency is one subject. And also, recycling materials and recycling byproduct material also is another topic. Again, since the potential is there, attention is there, and the money sources are allocated for those projects. So, in the near future or maybe in the midterm future, I see that we will see that lots of technologies, lots of companies taking those byproduct materials, those waste materials and converted to some value-added materials.
I have read reports just, I guess it was released in 2018, by CO2 Global Initiative, something like that. So, they came up with a study, and it's very… I mean, they came up with a very nice conclusion at the end. The conclusion that they estimated that by 2030, almost just 10 years from now, the CO2-based market reaches to value of $800 billion, with B. CO2 based market includes concrete construction material, fuel, polymer, and chemical materials and all of those things. So, it shows that, based on their estimation and based on their report, in just only 10 years, CO2 based market grows a lot.
Don MacPherson:
Talk about what the CO2-based market is.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
CO2 based market means that the materials or the products that are reduced by CO2 or carbon dioxide, like concrete, like Carbicrete’s product.
Don MacPherson:
So, you're saying that companies that are using CO2, this thing that is threatening the earth and causing global warming is going to create a market that's worth $800 billion in 10 years.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Based on the report and based on what the community believes that that's the case.
Don MacPherson:
And what do you think the current market is right now?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Is not that much. It's very limited.
Don MacPherson:
Is a billion dollars, $10 billion?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
It should be around 1 billion.
Don MacPherson:
$1 billion. So, it's going to go 800 times potentially in 10 years.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Potentially, yeah. And this is happening due to the government's pressure and all of those things. Based on the report, construction materials and fuels are the main markets and main products for the CO2 waste materials. So, it shows the potential, it shows the potential that CO2 based market is growing, it's going very fast. And the people try to use those liabilities, which is CO2, carbon dioxide, and convert it to something. Then you can sell it. Everything is started from carbon capture sequestration. They said that, okay, power plants, cement factories, steel factories, aluminum factories, they’re emitting lots of CO2 into atmosphere. They said that, okay, how we can deal with CO2. They said, Okay, let's capture it and then sequestrate it under the ground. So, basically you have to dig the ground for one kilometer, inject CO2 down the ground, and it's going to stay there hopefully for long time. But there are some challenges for that. First, it’s very expensive.
Don MacPherson:
Long time, meaning hundreds of years until we…
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
10,000.
Don MacPherson:
10,000. Okay.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
The challenges are first, it’s very expensive. Second, you have to monitor it for a long time. And the third, which is a major concern for this technology, CCS, carbon capture and sequestration, is that no one knows what's happening in 200 years, in 500 years. Maybe there will be some fault, some cracks, and then CO2 pops up. And imagine it would be devastating. So, it's going to kill lots of people, I assume, or it's going to damage lots of properties and it's not very good. I mean, they tried to come up with some models and their researchers are doing some analysis to predict what's happening in 2,000 years. But honestly, those are some models and some software-based analysis. Air squeaks can happen, something can happen, who knows? And honestly, it's very… No one can guarantee that in 10,000 years there would be no leakage. So, it's almost impossible for anyone to sign that document, I guess.
Don MacPherson:
Theoretically, when it's stored underground, is it stored as a gas?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
It's at a high pressure and high temperature. If I'm not wrong, it's converted to liquid, I guess.
Don MacPherson:
It's liquid?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Yeah. At that temperature, at that pressure, it's converted to liquid. But again, it's a very, very costly process. And you have to first locate this right location for putting the CO2 under the ground. You have to drill it, you have to monitor it every day. I mean, it’s a very…
Don MacPherson:
I'm asking is one curious person, just one knowledgeable person. So, it's carbon and then that's oxygen, CO2, right? Can you separate the C in the O2 and create just carbon solid, and then release the oxygen into the atmosphere?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Even if it's possible, it would be very energy intensive and expensive. I mean, you can do anything honestly. I mean, even you can convert, I believe, metal to gold, but it’s very expensive.
Don MacPherson:
Yeah. The you can create diamonds now.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Or you can create diamond. Exactly, artificial diamond. Exactly. But you have to see if economically is feasible or not.
Don MacPherson:
So, in theory, it's possible, but not easy.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Not. Exactly.
Don MacPherson:
It's not solving the problem we want.
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
It’s not solving the problem we want. Basically, for the CCS technology, they see carbon dioxide as a garbage that you have to just dump it, you have to just leave it somewhere and then forget about it. In carbon capture and utilization, CCU, the approach is completely different. We are saying that, okay, we can use that CO2, not as a garbage or as a liability, rather than we can use it to make some product that we can sell that product to the community. Basically, no longer CO2 is a bad material or bad stuff. We can use it. We need CO2. Let's use CO2 and make something. That's why the concept of CCU and the concept of CO2 conversion, the concept of CO2 waste material, these are different names for the same concept, using CO2 to produce fuel, using CO2 to fuel concrete, using CO2 two produce agriculture products. That market and that technologies are developing. And you'll see, as I mentioned, by 10 years, there's estimation that the market will reach to $800 billion.
Don MacPherson:
That's incredible. That's very exciting. So, I want to ask about your background. You came from Iran. When did you come to Canada?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
Yeah, I was born and grew up in Tehran, Iran's capital. I came to Canada in 2008. I got my bachelor and my master degree in structural engineering back home in University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technologies. And I came to University of Alberta. I got my second master degree in material engineering, and I came to McGill University and I pursued my PhD program.
Don MacPherson:
You're obviously an innovator in the concrete industry, but you're also a warrior in the war against global warming. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's ability to address global warming?
Mehrdad Mahoutian:
No, I'm very positive. I'm very positive, because again, now the attentions are there. The zeal to change is there. If you look at politicians, if you look at financial guys, if you talk to engineers, all of them are talking about this challenge, this problem, climate change. Again, if you look at the news, almost every day there is a news about climate change. There's a conference in somewhere, there's a talk in another university. I mean, it shows that there's a zeal in there. People wants to have some positive impacts. They want to change it, they want to reduce the temperature, they want to solve the climate change. For that reason, I believe that the future is bright.
Don MacPherson:
Well, I appreciate your optimism and I share it as well. Mehrdad, this has been a phenomenal conversation. Thanks for being a guest on the show, and thank you for being a genius.
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