When you think of a chemical curing room inside of a factory, hot temperatures and noxious fumes probably come to mind.

Actually, it was sort of like a spa: A fine mist swirled through the air and the room was a few degrees cooler inside than out. A CalStar Products employee periodically came in with a fresh tray of the company’s bricks to set on a rack.

Industrial spa treatments like CalStar’s lay at the heart of the movement toward eliminating embedded energy in manufactured products. The company has devised a “green” brick that requires 85 percent less energy to produce than conventional clay bricks and consists of 40 percent fly ash, the waste emissions captured at coal-burning power plants.

Read the rest of “Inside the Green Brick House” on greentechmedia.com