Better Materials Could Build a Green Construction Industry

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Construction material entrepreneurs discussed efforts to create more environmentally friendly cement and other building products at a conference in California.

By Mark Fischetti

The construction industry consumes truckloads of basic materials, the manufacture of which consumes massive quantities of energy, producing prodigious emissions of greenhouse gases. If materials scientists and entrepreneurs can devise materials that can be fabricated with less energy, climate change could be slowed and many new manufacturing jobs could be created, fulfilling a much-anticipated promise of clean-tech innovation.

The U.S., which lost millions of manufacturing jobs in recent decades, is in a strong position to capitalize on greener construction materials if research and funding are focused soon, according to panelists who spoke Wednesday at the GoingGreen conference in Sausalito, Calif. "We have such terrific materials science in this country," said Marianne Wu, partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. "But for years it's all been applied to infotech and biotech. We simply have not been looking at building materials. There is pent-up expertise that can create all sorts of innovations."

Many basic building products can be improved so significantly that everything is up for reinvention, said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. "We're beginning to make less energy-intensive cement," he noted, "but maybe we can make better bricks, too. My company's new drywall is the first real change in decades. Double-pane windows were invented in the 1800s. The world just has not cared about working on this."

The success of new cement from Calera Corp. shows how large gains can be. "The production of Portland cement globally creates two and a half billion tons of carbon dioxide annually," Calera CEO Brent Constantz said. Instead, new processes Calera is scaling up can actually sequester half a ton of the greenhouse gas for each ton of cement produced. And fresh water is created as a by-product. Furthermore, if the cement factories were installed next to coal-fired power plants, they could absorb the plants' carbon emissions as raw material.

Because the construction industry is so extensive, and because of the U.S.'s embedded materials expertise, Surace maintained that a transformation to cleaner technologies could bring basic manufacturing back to the country. "We can get back to making things, which was the foundation of American industry for a century," he said.

To make that transition happen, "we need to build new Silicon Valleys of construction materials entrepreneurs, and we need universities to develop programs that can churn out people with the right expertise," Surace said. Mohr Davidow's Wu noted that millions of jobs could realistically be created, adding: "These materials are big, and heavy, so it makes economic sense to manufacture them locally, instead of shipping them thousands of miles." She said that labor for this sort of manufacturing is low tech and therefore not expensive, making it harder for overseas competitors to undercut domestic producers. "A clean-tech building materials industry really could bring lots of jobs back to the U.S.," Wu said, "in many local regions."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....uction-industry

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Construction material entrepreneurs discussed efforts to create more environmentally friendly cement and other building products at a conference in California.

By Mark Fischetti

The construction industry consumes truckloads of basic materials, the manufacture of which consumes massive quantities of energy, producing prodigious emissions of greenhouse gases. If materials scientists and entrepreneurs can devise materials that can be fabricated with less energy, climate change could be slowed and many new manufacturing jobs could be created, fulfilling a much-anticipated promise of clean-tech innovation.

The U.S., which lost millions of manufacturing jobs in recent decades, is in a strong position to capitalize on greener construction materials if research and funding are focused soon, according to panelists who spoke Wednesday at the GoingGreen conference in Sausalito, Calif. "We have such terrific materials science in this country," said Marianne Wu, partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. "But for years it's all been applied to infotech and biotech. We simply have not been looking at building materials. There is pent-up expertise that can create all sorts of innovations."

Many basic building products can be improved so significantly that everything is up for reinvention, said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. "We're beginning to make less energy-intensive cement," he noted, "but maybe we can make better bricks, too. My company's new drywall is the first real change in decades. Double-pane windows were invented in the 1800s. The world just has not cared about working on this."

The success of new cement from Calera Corp. shows how large gains can be. "The production of Portland cement globally creates two and a half billion tons of carbon dioxide annually," Calera CEO Brent Constantz said. Instead, new processes Calera is scaling up can actually sequester half a ton of the greenhouse gas for each ton of cement produced. And fresh water is created as a by-product. Furthermore, if the cement factories were installed next to coal-fired power plants, they could absorb the plants' carbon emissions as raw material.

Because the construction industry is so extensive, and because of the U.S.'s embedded materials expertise, Surace maintained that a transformation to cleaner technologies could bring basic manufacturing back to the country. "We can get back to making things, which was the foundation of American industry for a century," he said.

To make that transition happen, "we need to build new Silicon Valleys of construction materials entrepreneurs, and we need universities to develop programs that can churn out people with the right expertise," Surace said. Mohr Davidow's Wu noted that millions of jobs could realistically be created, adding: "These materials are big, and heavy, so it makes economic sense to manufacture them locally, instead of shipping them thousands of miles." She said that labor for this sort of manufacturing is low tech and therefore not expensive, making it harder for overseas competitors to undercut domestic producers. "A clean-tech building materials industry really could bring lots of jobs back to the U.S.," Wu said, "in many local regions."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....uction-industry

Two problems here:

1. Owners have no money to pay for these new materials - they don't really have enough money to pay for the current sh*t, but that's another matter.

2. Most owners outside of major urban and industrial areas don't trust new technology until it's well proven, and don't want to be the ones to prove it works, or otherwise.

Green building, the USGBC, the GBCI and LEED are all noble intentions. The sad reality is that the majority of the construction industry view these bodies and standards as a licence to print money. Owners are reluctant to pay the premium to have their buildings constructed to a LEED Certified standard, LEED Certified is 1-3% LEED Silver is about 5%, LEED Gold about 12% and LEED Platinum anywhere from 15% up, and builders will do whatever they are able to reduce costs in the current market.

Until the construction market picks up again, in some places that isn't likely until 3Q11, these new materials will sit and gather dust, with no-one willing to risk their use, because one mistake could mean the difference between another project and insolvency.

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Argon filled double paned windows are a pane in the butt, that part of the butt that is next to your wallet. R factor is only a fraction larger conventional storm windows, so small, they use the reciprocal of the R factor and call it the U factor. Recently laid out 450 bucks for a pane for my patio doors, and that was just the glass for one panel as that constant thermal expansion and contraction broke the seal and the windows fog up. I replaced it myself as the labor cost would have been twice as much, and that was after a lot of shopping for the best price. Most of these windows are guaranteed for ten years, so one panel of glass cost 45 bucks per year, really doubt if I save that much money in fuel cost. If I added up the cost of all the windows in my home, to come out ahead, the gas company would have to send me a check each month.

In my state, the major use of concrete is for road and street construction, but getting away from that, salt etches the hell out of it, and seeps under dissolving and freezes causing the concrete to heave leaving huge potholes bumps and cracks. So they are going back to asphalt, more flexible and easier to seal and immune to road salt.