Opinion
Ballard: Concrete homes produce less lifecycle carbon than traditional stick-built homes
“When you sort of did the whole accounting, sort of the life cycle accounting, there was a good argument to be made then and now that a house made of like more resilient, energy efficient materials on a life cycle actually would produce less carbon than one tha…”
Assertion Supported
Ballard: Replacing concrete with steel or plastic increases global carbon emissions
“If you replace concrete with anything, that number goes up. If you try to replace it with plastic, if you try to replace it with steel, think about where you use concrete.”
Opinion
Ballard: Drywall is the worst building material ever invented by humans
“Like if I offered you a million dollar prize, or the whole audience listening to the show, a million dollar prize to come up with a building material that could actually pass building code that was more cheaply and poorly made than drywall, nobody would win th…”
Assertion Partly supported
Ballard: ICON's 3D-printed homes sustained zero damage in 7.2 magnitude earthquake
“So, yeah, that's a very active seismic area, and not a lot, and so we designed the houses to be seismic. We had to go through a bunch of seismic testing, seismic evaluation, seismic structural and civil engineering, and then not long after we finished the proj…”
Insight
Ballard: In 3D-printed construction, complex curves cost the same as straight lines
“Yeah, you got things that look expensive. But are the same price to print as a straight line.”
Opinion
Ballard: Traditional stick framing will never yield breakthroughs to solve homelessness
“We've been stick framing homes for hundreds or even a thousand years. And it's not like we're going to discover some secret breakthrough in stick framing homes. It's going to allow us to solve homelessness.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ballard: Municipal curfews halt automated 3D printers, doubling ICON's labor costs
“There's no hammering, but the building code says you have to stop at seven PM, but these machines are designed to just turn them on and print. And so right now, like I could print homes in one week for sure, but it's taking us two weeks, which means even with …”
Insight
Ballard: 3D printing is for large bespoke structures, not cheap small items
“We were using it to make small things that were already mass produced very affordably. Like a lot of times people were, three printing coffee mugs and spoons and stuff. It's like, we already have a lot of those and they're made really cheaply. It's like a, it …”
Disclosure
Ballard: NASA contracted ICON to develop lunar and Martian 3D construction systems
“We got a contract to develop, ah, a construction system as part of the Moon to Mars program. Ah, so it's a construction system that's supposed to be for the Moon, but it should also be easily repurposed for Mars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ballard: ICON hand-loaded concrete into failing 3D printer for first prototype
“For instance, the pumping system completely crapped out and like, it never worked. And so we were actually like with buckets, hand loading the printer. So our joke to this day is like, it was an artisan, three D printed house.”
Assertion Supported
Ballard: ICON's 3D printers lay concrete continuously without pausing for drying
“No, it keeps moving. And by the time you're ready for the next layer, then the layer below it is ready to receive that layer.”
Assertion Supported
Ballard: ICON's early Austin 3D-printed homes sold for $400,000 to $800,000
“I think the, there are four, all four different sizes. I think the cheapest of them was like in the 400,000 dollar range. And the most expensive was like in the seven or 800,000 dollar range, if memory serves me correctly.”
Assertion Supported
Ballard: ICON launched a $1M contest to design $99,000 3D-printed homes
“We launched a year ago a global design contest called initiative 99 with a million dollar prize to design homes that could be built for 99,000 dollars or less.”
