A company based in the San Francisco Bay area, called CalStar, has come up with a new building material.
It’s an eco-friendly brick.
What is its significance to Southeastern Wisconsin?
Well, the company chose Caledonia, just 20 miles south of Milwaukee, to be the first place to make the bricks.
Later this morning CalStar will hold an open house to show off the new facility.
WUWM Environmental Reporter Susan Bence had the chance to pop down for a tour of the plant.
You have to look hard to spot CalStar’s plant on Four Mile Road. It’s buried behind mounds of snow, in what was once a radiator factory.
Tom Pounds, the company’s CEO, is double checking ribbon cutting logistics as I arrive.
He calls the plant’s evolution “remarkable.”
“We moved into the building just in August of 2009 and so we’ve put together everything you see here just over the last 20 weeks or so,” Pounds says.
CalStar has only existed for three years, but its team represents decades of engineering and entrepreneurial experience.
Pounds says his group set out to design alternative building materials.
“With much lower energy content and much lower CO2 emissions,” Pounds says.
Pounds says the team tinkered with all sorts of possibilities, from “greener” cement to a lower-carbon footprint concrete.
“And a good bit of leg work in running down opportunities - running down in some cases, blind alleys. We went to Australia, China,” Pounds says.
Fly ash began to stand out as a good material to work with. It’s a by-product of coal-burning power plants.
Pounds says fly ash is already used widely in the production of building materials such as concrete.
While his researchers were busy figuring how else to harness the potential of ash, Pounds says a scientist entered their lives.
“Henry Liu who was an emeritus professor from the University of Missouri and Henry had been working on developing a fly ash brick,” Pounds says.
Pounds says the scientist’s research crystallized the course CalStar would take - to manufacture bricks from fly ash.
"We’ve done very dramatic development and almost a rework of that original idea, but that was the moment that took us forward,” Pounds says.
The final product has three main ingredients, fly ash, of course, sand and what Pounds calls, “the secret sauce.” He’s not about to divulge the recipe.
“No! That’s what we invested all of our investors’ money in figuring out the secret sauce to make this work,” Pounds says.
But he does give me a tour of the football field sized plant.
So far, twelve people have been hired. They’re in the “commissioning phase.”
“We’ve turned on all the machines and we’re now in the process of shaking down the equipment and getting into production over the next month or so,” Pounds says.
Pounds says the components of the system came from all over the world.
"See the sand going up in those hoppers? So the sand comes in, gets moved into this and all of it comes together into the mixer up there on the platform," Pounds says.
A test batch of bricks is being produced right now. You can feel the workers’ excitement in the buzzing air.
But one man, Amitabah Kumari, seems preoccupied. He’s outfitted in a lab jacket and hard hat, and is taking a sample back to the lab.
Kumar checks every batch as they come off the press.
“To make sure it has the right compaction, the right amount of ingredients,” Kumar says.
It turns out, Kumar is the guy who came up with that elusive secret sauce. He says he’s thrilled to be a part of a project he describes a “meaningful to the planet.”
“So I’m not saying that I’m somebody who’s going to make a big difference to the world, but I think if each one of chips away at it, there’s a solution in the end,” Kumar says.
The process of making the fly ash bricks requires 85 percent less energy to manufacture than traditional bricks, according to the company. The operation will also keep fly ash out of landfills.
Tom Kelly’s waiting back in the office. He can’t wait to get the new brick into customer’s hands.
He’s one of the people who will sell the bricks.
Kelly says not only is the building industry hungry for anything green, but he calls the product a bricklayer’s dream. That’s because unlike clay, you can count on every fly ash brick to turn out the same uniform shape.
“The ability to have a product that you can count on that’s consistent that you know what type of productivity you can get out of your men, is very, very important to the masons,” Kelly says.
Despite the excitement swirling around the fly ash brick, CalStar faces potential challenges.
Some people perceive the substance as potentially dangerous because fly ash is a by-product of burning coal.
CEO Tom Pounds says concern flared after a recent spill in Tennessee.
“There’s some regulation that’s being considered in Washington. There are a number of people who believe so strongly that the federal government needs strong oversight of this material, that they want to take the step of categorizing fly ash as a hazardous waste,” Pounds says.
So after today’s celebration at the new Caledonia plant, somebody from CalStar will likely be spending time in Washington D.C., trying to convince officials of the positive attributes of fly ash.
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