What's in the Drum for Concrete in 2025

The 2024 presidential campaign is behind us, and the election of President Donald Trump, plus Republican control of both chambers of Congress, means the nation is positioned for a near-total reset of federal energy and environmental policy. Among other outcomes, that could free up additional volumes of coal ash for use in concrete production.

First, federal regulatory agencies are likely to return to policies that encourage both coal power and beneficial use of coal ash. Expanded use of coal ash in concrete is a primary method by which concrete contractors can adhere to the growing number of federal, state and local procurement policies designed to lower the embodied carbon in construction projects.

Early signs of this shift include Trump’s Cabinet nominations: U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright for Energy Department Secretary and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Interior. These appointments demonstrate the administration’s commitment to pro-energy policy objectives, and influential agencies will now likely advocate for fossil fuels, deregulation and a newly-formed National Energy Council—possibly even the return of the National Coal Council.

If the past is prologue, a more receptive view of coal and its byproducts by federal regulators will increase the supply of coal ash for beneficial use in concrete and other building applications. From 2002 to 2008, the multi-agency Coal Combustion Products Partnership (C2P2) actively encouraged recycling of coal ash and boosted both the rate and volume of coal ash available to concrete producers to their highest levels to that point. A renewed emphasis on increasing the available supply of this large-scale domestic resource is now required to provide contractors with lower-carbon concrete to meet stringent Environmental Product Declarations required by regulators and project owners.

Decarbonizing Data Centers

Big Tech is now building data centers at a rapid pace to expand AI and cloud computing capabilities. While AI represents a significant growth market for concrete producers, data centers require enormous amounts of electricity to operate and will emit vast amounts of CO₂. A recent report estimates the data center industry will generate 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon emissions a year by 2030, even as AI leaders Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have pledged to reduce their global warming emissions by the end of the decade.

A typical new data center requires approximately 25,000 cubic yards of concrete. Data center developers are aware of the environmental impact of their facilities and are seeking to decarbonize both their energy sources and the building materials used in construction. Reducing the environmental impact of these structures inevitably requires the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) such as coal ash to replace ordinary portland cement (OPC) in the production of concrete, as OPC manufacturing is responsible for virtually all of the embodied carbon in concrete. In fact, an estimated 8 percent of all man-made CO2 emissions are caused by the manufacture of portland cement. Substituting fly ash for a portion of the cement in concrete mixes significantly reduces those emissions—every ton of portland cement displaced by fly ash in the production of concrete delivers nearly a ton of CO₂ reductions. Specifying fly ash concrete for data centers going forward will be key to lowering the emissions associated with their construction.

Fortunately for data centers developers, fly ash is in abundant supply in the U.S. Although coal plants continue to be retired, the American Coal Ash Association (ACAA) estimates that approximately 2 billion tons of previously disposed ash is available in landfills and impoundments around the country to be harvested to meet the concrete sector’s net-zero-carbon targets. Utilizing those 2 billion tons of fly ash in concrete production would avoid the release of almost 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. The rapidly expanding practice of harvesting previously disposed ash promises a more reliable supply of ash for ready-mix producers and concrete specifiers, as its availability is unaffected by seasonal or other variations in the operation of coal plants. According to ACAA, in 2022 more than 4 million tons of previously disposed coal ash was harvested from landfills and impoundments and used in concrete and other building applications—equal to 8.7 percent of the volume of ash recycled from current power plant operations. This volume is expected to grow substantially in 2025 and in subsequent years.

With a new president in office, a shift in environmental policy underway, and exploding demand for data centers, concrete contractors can look forward to a busy year in 2025—and SCM providers such as Eco Material Technologies will be there to provide them the materials for the job.