Silicon Valley reinvents the lowly brick

[Joanne98]

NEWARK, California (Reuters) - Forget microchips.

Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the U.S. technology capital.

Brick maker Calstar Products is heavy on PhDs and backed by venture capitalists whose vision is to create buildings less expensively and in a way that saves energy.

"We think it is time for a second industrial revolution," said Paul Holland, a partner at Foundation Capital, which invested $7 million in Calstar. EnerTech Capital led another round that raised $8 million for the business.

"We and dozens of others are trying to create green alternatives for all the things that happen in the building industry," Holland said.

Currently about 40 percent of U.S. energy use goes toward the heating, cooling and general operation of buildings.

Silicon Valley is finding high-tech ways to make age-old materials, pursuing carbon dioxide-eating concrete, windows that insulate better than walls, and wood substitutes.

The field is still new. Venture investments in green buildings have waxed and waned with the recession, but involved 45 deals worth about $350 million the past year, according to Cleantech Group LLC.

3,000-YEAR WAIT

Bricks have been made pretty much the same way for 3,000 years, until Calstar's scientists came up with their new technique, said Chief Executive Michael Kane.

Ordinary bricks are fired for 24 hours at 2,000 degrees F (1,093 C) as part of a process that can last a week, while Calstar bricks are baked at temperatures below 212 F (100 C) and take only 10 hours from start to finish, Kane said.

The recipe incorporates large amounts of fly ash -- a fluffy, powdery residue of burned coal at electric plants, that can otherwise wind up as a troublesome pollutant.

"Ours is a precise product" that relies on getting the chemistry right, said Amitabha Kumar, Calstar's director of research and development.

The process of making the bricks, which look and feel like any other brick, requires 80 to 90 percent less energy and emits 85 percent less greenhouse gas than ordinary bricks, according to Calstar.

Lower energy costs mean higher profit, allowing the company to pay for its research and compete against large companies that have economies of scale. The new bricks -- which the Brick Industry Association says are not actually bricks -- will sell for the same price as traditional clay-based ones. The Brick Industry Association says there is also no proof that products using fly ash will last as well as traditional brick. Continued..
http://www.reuters.com/article/wtUSInvestingNews/idUSTRE58K47220090921

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Wow, no recs? This sounds like good planning. nt

[Nihil]

2. Personally ...

... I didn't rec because I'm still not sure about the viability of building
with lower temperature bricks made out of toxic fly ash.

It might be that it becomes as solid and as safe as concrete (or standard
bricks) but I'd be pretty wary of using it for my own house ...

:shrug:

[MH1]

4. I was wondering about the toxicity of fly ash too

I'd need to be convinced that it's really safely "locked up" in those bricks and not eroding into the environment over time.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, yeah, there is that ...

thought I had read elsewhere that the danger from flyash in masonry was minimal ... actually considerably safer than leaving it in dumps. The real danger is that when the masonry is broken up (demolition) you have to remember what it is made from, and treat it with similar safety measures as newly created ash.

[hunter]

3. It seems to be a cement brick with the texture of a fired clay brick.

Why not?

I'm not so worried about the fly ash component as Nihil is above. Fly ash is a common component of many kinds of cement already and the public doesn't seem too upset by that.

No I'm not going to use fly ash bricks in my house, or even some of the usual radioactive clay bricks, but then again living in earthquake country brick houses are sort of alien to me. I always feel wary when I'm inside an old brick building, especially the ones that are posted with those signs at the entrance telling you that you'll be buried in a pile of bricks if there is a big earthquake.

[XemaSab]

6. Exactly

Why is this company in California, and not somewhere with, say, no earthquakes and lots of fly ash? :shrug: