EcoRock: Drywall Made with 90% Less Energy
by David Sassoon - Jan 7th, 2008
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America is a drywall nation. Fifty billion square feet of the stuff is manufactured each year, using an energy-intensive process invented in 1917. All that sheet rock in every nook and cranny of this country? Super-heated gypsum, merely. Primitive stuff. Close to half the cost of its manufacture can go to pay for the energy used to cook it hard.
Now enter EcoRock -- it's wall board that requires 90% less energy to manufacture. It looks and performs just like traditional sheet rock -- only it's hardly got a carbon footprint. That's a big deal if you consider that making drywall accounts for 1% of US energy consumption.
EcoRock is the latest product going into production from a Sunnyvale, California start-up called Serious Materials. Earlier this year, they got a patent for soundproof drywall. A single sheet of QuietRock delivers the noise reduction of eight sheets of standard drywall.
Now investors have handed over $50 million to Serious Materials to allow the company to manufacture EcoRock commercially. It will go on sale this summer, and go into full production in the fall.
Here's what Kevin Surace, CEO of the company, told Fast Company:
We look at it as the beginning of a new industrial revolution. What you're seeing is the opportunity to take everything that we do around us and get on the right side of the energy curve.
The formula for EcoRock is a closely guarded secret. It's first customers will be builders who are going green -- a booming niche. In 2005, green building products and services generated $7 billion in revenue. Now, it has almost doubled.
With oil at $100 a barrel and all forms of energy only getting pricier, why burn it to cook gypsum? The investors who placed their $50 million bet on EcoRock look like the ones with the smart money.
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Drywall & Plastering Contractor
Thanks for this Beautiful article about Drywall and Plaster Demaged!
Nice Concept
It's a great idea considering that making drywall accounts for 1% of US energy consumption but if it's not cost efficient, contractors will continue to buy the same old drywall.
EcoRock will make a
EcoRock will make a difference when you can find it at Home Depot at a comprable price to sheetrock. If it costs more per sheet to make than drywall it will never be more than a boutique building material, ie., not made at all.
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