“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” – King Canute Back in August we published a post called: “100 Cokes or 1 Mile:…

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” — Charles Mackay  A guy wrote that in 1841.  1841.  No internet. No CNBC. No…

Keep your eye on the prize. (Adobe) You’ve probably seen the dumb version of this story already. “Trump wants cheap oil.” “Exxon won’t touch Venezuela.” “Guyana hit the jackpot.” “Russia and China are involved.” All true-ish. Also not useful. He…

When the lights get expensive, everything else follows. For the last few years, Europe has been trying to run an industrial economy on wishful thinking. It looked fine in speeches. It looked even better in press releases. Then the bill showed up.…

Buckeyes for the win! (Adobe) Data centers are the new “economic development win” that shows up in a press release before anyone asks the obvious question. Where’s the power coming from? And who’s paying to build the system that makes it possi…

Concrete didn’t become the default building material because it was fashionable. It won because it made sense. It was durable. It was local. And for a long time, it was the economical choice when you looked at the whole building—not just one line it…

Making it look easy. Adobe For a long time, success in the concrete industry was simple. Know the spec.Hit strength.Keep the schedule moving. If something went wrong, you pointed to the drawings, the mix design, or the standard and moved on. …

Proven technology. Georgia Power. The Trump Media + TAE Fusion Power merger still reads like a deal someone dreamed up in the airport bar during a 3-hour delay. A social media company with meme-stock metabolism merges with a f…

What’s the productivity benchmark for a guitar-shaped building? (Miami Herald). This week’s post was inspired by a LinkedIn post from Eric Koehler. Hello Eric. Eric is a sharp, thoughtful guy and someone I respect. He was also a guest on the Concr…

CO₂ capture. Because photosynthesis apparently doesn’t matter. (Adobe) I got another message this week. Same theme as a few others.  “Anti-PLC.” “Only talking about it because it draws an audience.”  Maybe it draws an audience because almost nobody…

Fire 'em back up. (Adobe) Every now and then something crosses my screen that stops me mid-scroll. This week it was an argument that coal fly ash might help break China’s chokehold on rare earth elements.  It is not a bad thought. There is real…

Grit. (Bakerconstruction.com) If you ever sit down with Dan Baker long enough, you realize the man doesn’t talk in clichés. He talks in lived experience.  Everything he says comes from some job where his back was against the wall. Or a moment when…

Follow the Line. Follow the Money. If you’ve been following the Type IL situation the last few years, you’ve heard every excuse under the sun about why Portland limestone cement suddenly became the “future” of American concrete. We’ve been told it’…

Pipe dream. (Adobe) Every once in a while, the cement industry drops a headline so painfully obvious you wonder if anyone has been awake for the last decade.   This week’s gem?   Europe is sounding the alarm that cement prices could triple by 205…

Progress. (Adobe) Dominion Energy just filed its 2025 Renewable Portfolio Standard plan with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. It’s their roadmap for meeting Virginia’s renewable energy mandates under the Clean Economy Act.If you read thro…

Changing of the guard. (Adobe) Back in July, we covered the U.S. Department of Energy report A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. It didn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. The report—written by John C…

A rare glimpse of the Creative Minds of Cement in their natural habitat - a castle. (OpenAI) It was a crisp autumn morning in late 2021 when the tolling of bells echoed through the vaulted halls of Castle Valkenhorst, perched high on a European …

Don’t worry, we’ll just dig our own—how hard can it be? For decades, we’ve been told that free trade keeps the world out of trouble. The logic was simple: if countries are busy buying, selling, and shipping each other’s goods, they won’t have time …

Somebody’s paying for all this concrete… hope it’s not my Xbox bill. (photo credit: Adobe) I ran across a couple of blog posts from Harris “Kuppy” Kupperman over at Praetorian Capital. The guy’s a veteran hedge fund manager who’s seen a few booms a…

Is NVIDIA an Astros fan? (Getty Images) Enron was the golden child. By 2000, it was the seventh largest company in America, worth more than sixty billion dollars. The business magazines loved them. Wall Street analysts couldn’t say enough good thin…

Raising cane (Adobe). If you think groceries are expensive now, just wait—this winter they could double. Back in March, I wrote about McKinley’s tariffs and how history showed us exactly what happens when governments play with trade barriers. You …

By Victor Gillam - https://pixels.com/featured/monroe-doctrine-1896-granger.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82247860 I read an article from Doomberg, one of my favorite geopolitical writers, and it got me thinki…

Back in 2011, the cement industry told us portland-limestone cement (PLC) was no risk. The updated State of the Art Report 2024 walks that back. Now it admits PLC can have higher carbonation, chloride ingress, and admixture sensitivity—but don’t wor…

I don’t spend my days at the country club or hanging out in boardrooms. I’m a business development guy in concrete construction. That means I’m chasing projects, knocking on doors, and keeping our name out there. If I end up on a golf course, it’s o…