The Future of Cement: Could Your House Be One Big Battery?

I was doom-scrolling last night (yes, I know I’m supposed to be using those time limits on my apps, I slipped), and I saw something weird and totally up my alley.

Cement that powers your house.

If you’ve been around here before, you know I love exploring ideas that are environmentally friendly and cool. As it turns out…this is both, and I’m here for it.

Scientists have developed a special type of cement that can store and supply electricity, meaning your walls, floors, and maybe even your driveway could soon double as a giant rechargeable battery.

Now the scientists in question are some MIT researchers working on a material they call electron-conducting carbon concrete. Key names in this wild project include Damian Stefaniuk (first author) and Admir Masic, who are part of MIT’s work on carbon-cement supercapacitors. James Weaver, associated with Cornell University and formerly part of this effort, is also cited as a co-author in the reported journal paper.

Wait, How Can Cement Store Energy?

Cement isn’t exactly known for being exciting, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever thought twice about it before this moment in time right now. It’s heavy, gray, and pretty much the building block of boring. But scientists have been experimenting with adding carbon-based materials like carbon black (a super fine powder made from burning hydrocarbons) into cement mixtures.

This transforms our otherwise bland material into something called a supercapacitor. Fancy.

If you’re not familiar with supercapacitors (umm same, when does a sommelier need to know about these?), think of them as fast-charging, long-living energy storage devices.

They don’t hold as much energy as a battery, but they can charge and discharge way faster! And by infusing cement with carbon black, scientists have managed to make it electrically conductive, which is the first step toward turning cement into an energy-storing material.

So imagine pouring your foundation, and that same foundation could store solar power from your roof or absorb energy from a nearby wind turbine. Pretty neat, right?

(If you’re as into this energy tech stuff as I am, check out my post on how the Carrington Event could wipe out modern power grids for a little energy history with a side of existential dread.)

But Why Cement?

Here’s the thing, we actually use a LOT of cement. It’s one of the most widely used materials on the planet.

Buildings, bridges, sidewalks, you name it, we figure out how to put cement into it. So if we can make the thing we already use for structure in the grand majority of places also work as an energy source, we don’t need to add expensive new infrastructure into things we build. It’s already baked (literally) into the design.

Plus, cement is durable, long-lasting, and everywhere. If we’re gonna hide batteries in plain sight, there’s really no better material for it. Maybe glass, but people are already working on clear solar panels.

How Much Energy Can It Actually Store?

Now, don’t go thinking your house is going off-grid tomorrow, because it’s not for a lot of reasons.

Right now, the energy storage capacity of these cement supercapacitors is absolutely tiny. We’re talking enough to maybe power a few LED lights or charge your phone. But researchers are scaling up by layering slabs together, adding more conductive material, and improving efficiency. Slowly but surely we might be able to power bigger things.

In the future, we might see entire walls or building facades acting as massive energy storage systems, balancing out renewable energy when the sun’s not shining or the wind’s not blowing.

You know me, I’m always in the pursuit of the little things for environmental relief. I believe in death by a thousand paper-cuts and that there isn’t one big solution to our problems, just a lot of little things that will add up eventually. Like the slow burn of blogging or anything good in life.

Even small-scale energy storage in your home’s structure could make a big difference for things like emergency power, lighting systems, or even charging your electric car overnight. (Hello, dooms-day-preppers, I’m here with you!)

Could This Replace Traditional Batteries?

Eh, probably not anytime soon. Batteries like lithium-ion still hold way more energy in a much smaller package.

But there’s something really appealing about integrating energy storage into things we already build anyway. I like the idea of a city where the sidewalks, buildings, and even the concrete benches in the park are quietly soaking up solar energy all day.

It’s not a replacement of anything we already are doing, it’s just an addition. And with the way energy demand is growing globally, every little bit helps.

(Oh, and speaking of charging things up, if you’re thinking about upgrading your own backup power situation, I love this portable power station on Amazon for keeping essentials running during outages. It’s small, easy to carry, and way less intimidating than those giant generators. Get it with the solar pannels for extra protection!)

For a house to actually use cement as a battery, it would need specially engineered cement mixtures (can’t just pour the Home Depot stuff), embedded electrodes to collect and move the charge, wiring to connect the cement storage to your home’s power system, and some smart controls to manage charging and discharging.

In other words, it’s not just “slap some cement together and plug in your fridge.” It’ll take serious engineering and design changes and houses already built with the old-school cement most likely won’t be worth the price of rebuilding.

But the good news is if this technology keeps improving, new homes could be built with this kind of system already integrated, similar to how we’ve normalized things like radiant floor heating (in bathrooms this is a game changer, I used to have turtles whose tank was on a heated floor and they loved it) or solar panels.

And for existing homes maybe the easiest way to do it is retrofitting driveways, patios, or even garden paths so foundations don’t need to be ripped out.

Cement’s Dirty Secret

One thing worth mentioning: cement production is super carbon-intensive. It’s responsible for about 8% of global CO2 emissions. So while it’s exciting to think of cement doing double duty as an energy storage medium, it doesn’t erase the environmental cost of producing cement in the first place.

Researchers are also working on low-carbon or carbon-negative cement alternatives, and combining that with energy storage could be a real game changer. It would be cool to have building materials that remove carbon from the air AND store energy at the same time.

Now that’s the sustainable future I want to see eventually.

(If you’re curious about other futuristic materials, check out my piece on glowing plants and bioluminescence—nature’s version of a living lightbulb.)

If every building, road, and parking lot could hold a little bit of energy, we could flatten out energy peaks and valleys, making the grid much much more stable and much less reliant on centralized power plants.

But in practice, there are still hurdles like scaling up production, a long-term durability testing, figuring out how to repair or replace sections without losing stored energy, and the biggest one is really cost, because you KNOW new tech isn’t cheap at first.

We’re still a few years (at least) from seeing cement batteries hit mainstream construction, but hopefully it’s coming. And it’s going to completely change how we think about buildings, not just as structures, but as active participants in energy systems.

Should You Wait for Cement Batteries?

Yeah, I wouldn’t hold off your next reno waiting for this. It’s not commercially available yet, and early versions will likely be super expensive and only in specialized projects.

But keep an eye on it in the long run. The same way solar panels went from niche tech to rooftop norm in a couple of decades, I wouldn’t be surprised if cement batteries followed a similar path.

In the meantime, the best thing you can do is keep exploring energy solutions that work for you, whether that’s solar, backup batteries, or even just learning more about how we use energy in daily life.

(And hey, if your driveway ever ends up being a power bank in 20 years? I hope you remember reading about it here first.)