"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."
Some classy FUD there from the BIA.
It's also worth noting that Calstar is starting with non-load-bearing brick markets, where lives are not on the line.
So perhaps there's more to it in this particular case.
Fly ash can replace up to 50% of the cement needed in concrete - saying that 'there's no proof it will last' seems fairly ridiculous.
I'm glad karma only goes to -8 per comment now, or I'd never have posted this :)
Seriously, are bricks really a big enough product to be called an industry? I'd think they'd just be part of a larger "building materials industry". Are they volatile enough to need an industry association?
Are you kidding? If nothing else, the "historic districts" of many cities in America would support a brick industry.
Roofing tile was something I hadn't considered, though. That could be huge.
These are non-load-bearing purely-decorative bricks. What does your intuition tell you is a good ballpark for the ratio of "load-bearing" bricks to "decorative" bricks?