
How Mushrooms Could Repair Our Crumbling Infrastructure - ph0rque
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608717/how-mushrooms-could-repair-our-crumbling-infrastructure/
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pm90
TLDR:

* the proposal is to mix the fungal spores when pouring concrete, in the hope the spores remain dormant in concrete pores. When cracks form and water/mositure seeps into the cracks, the spores germinate and produce calcium carbonate deposits that "fix" the cracks.

* The article notes that more research is required before this mechanism is proven to work; it has been showed to work in petri dish/controlled conditions

* Probably won't fix existing infrastructure as it requires to be mixed with concrete when its poured.

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kogepathic
_> Probably won't fix existing infrastructure as it requires to be mixed with
concrete when its poured._

Exactly. Using the term "fix" here is disingenuous to the actual research
being done.

This is simply research into a fungal addititive which if added to concrete
could prevent cracks from worsening.

What is likely to happen if they ever figure out how to add it to concrete is
that the life span of concrete structures will be upgraded accordingly and the
neglect will stay at it's present level until the new and improved structures
start to fail.

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oftenwrong
Increasing the life of concrete structures would be a boon to civilization,
but it's worth noting that crumbling infrastructure in the United States is
more the result of poor planning than technological limitations. The nation
routinely over-builds its infrastructure beyond its ability to maintain it.

Strong Towns writes about this often:

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/8/9/939-million-
sho...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/8/9/939-million-short-but-no-
plan-to-raise-revenue)

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/26/what-are-
you-d...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/26/what-are-you-doing-
maine)

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/18/highway-
spendi...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/18/highway-spending-is-
eating-the-budget)

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blunte
And by "beyond its ability" I think you mean "beyond its willingness".

~~~
ThrustVectoring
It's kind of both, or either. If maintaining roads servicing a neighborhood
will cost $10k/yr per house in property taxes, the unwillingness of
constituents to service that tax load is an inability of politicians to levy
that tax.

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ergothus
Beyond the issues the article acknowledges, and the misleading implication
that this would help fix existing roads/bridges, I see two large question
areas:

* The claim is that the spores would be "dormant" until cracks appeared and brought water to them. How exactly does that happen? What ensures the calcium carbonate grows ONLY in the cracks? Why would this not lead to uneven/bumpy roads? * They say that the spores would probably get crushed in existing concrete blends, but maybe we could add air bubbles to the mix. I'm not a material scientist, but I'd guess that taking something with 1 micrometer holes and making them into 4 micrometer holes would have impact on the resulting material.

I'm not saying that the research isn't worth pursuing, but it is a bit of a
smell that such questions aren't even acknowledged in the article.

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peterwwillis
Mushrooms won't fix our crumbling infrastructure. But planned obsolescence
might.

The biggest problem our crumbling infrastructure faces is the cost of aging:
most heavily trafficked bridges are nearing the end of their expected
lifespan, 11% of our bridges are structurally deficient, and we don't budget
enough money to keep up with the backlog of bridges to repair. As bridges are
allowed to age and maintenance is deferred, the cost to repair them triples.
And since it's so expensive, we get lost in debate over whether we should
replace them.

If we designed our infrastructure to actually collapse at a set time, it might
instill the correct level of panic for government to actually fund and repair
our infrastructure _before_ it kills people and burdens the economy. Without a
deadline, government just waits for the eventual emergency.

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mhandley
Interesting idea, but if I understood correctly, it doesn't seem like this
could repair existing crumbling infrastructure. Rather it might be useful in
preventing new infrastructure from crumbling.

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jk563
Sounds like an interesting solution. The article does point out that this is
very early, petri-dish stage, and that there is a significant problem in that
the concrete could crush the shrooms when it sets.

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22c
Déjà vu:

[http://heronjournal.nl/56-12/1.pdf](http://heronjournal.nl/56-12/1.pdf)

[https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2015/jun/29...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/2015/jun/29/the-self-healing-concrete-that-can-fix-its-own-cracks)

