The future of home-building is here. And we're behind.

Washington Post

6 hours ago

Andrés Clarens is a professor of engineering at the University of Virginia and a former assistant director for industrial decarbonization in the White House Office of Science and Technology.
Every home starts with basic components: concrete for foundations, steel or wood for framing, glass for windows and chemicals for insulation and finishes. These can account for half of total construction cost, making them a major driver of housing affordability and availability. And just as the United States needs to build millions of new homes, we are leaving it to Chinese laboratories to design the materials for them.
These core ingredients are an often overlooked aspect of our housing shortage. They are expensive, energy-intensive and traded internationally much more than they were a generation ago. We need better, faster and cheaper domestic production of construction materials. A collection of 24 projects supported by the Energy Department's Industrial Demonstrations Program were developing technologies to enable that. In May, the Trump administration revoked funding for them, citing a lack of alignment with its priorities.
The U.S. materials innovation ecosystem is among the best in the world, but it lags at commercializing discoveries. Two years ago, the demonstrations program was expanded to recover that gap by giving companies grant support to deploy and scale its first-of-a-kind technology.
The canceled grants supported projects that were on track to reshape their respective industries, including Sublime Systems, which is developing cement production methods that circumvent the sector's reliance on coal, reducing costs while eliminating cement's carbon pollution problem. Chemical company Eastman's molecular recycling facility is transforming plastic waste into resins for siding, insulation and piping at lower costs. American Ductile Iron Pipe was developing cheaper ways to make ductile iron pipe to address aging water infrastructure in American homes. Technip and LanzaTech are focused on producing ethylene from industrial waste gas, enabling production of coatings, insulation and plumbing components.
The reversal of grant funding for these innovations strikes at an inopportune time. Demand remains high: By some estimates, a single family home requires 50 tons of concrete, 10 tons of steel and 2 tons of chemical products. But in the past two decades, the United States has lost much of its domestic production capacity. Almost all domestic aluminum production has migrated to China's subsidized electricity. Cement, which used to be produced near most American cities, is increasingly imported. Glass production has consolidated around lower-cost international competitors. This exodus leaves American home builders dependent on imported materials subject to price volatility, supply chain disruptions and geopolitical tensions.
While American policymakers implement shortsighted funding cuts, China focuses on technological leadership in new materials through its $300 billion 'Made in China 2025' industrial plan. Chinese companies already produce over half of the world's cement and are set to become the leading producer of bio-based chemicals. The country controls over half of global aluminum production, most rare earth elements used in advanced materials and growing market shares in specialized construction chemicals. Meanwhile, American alternatives remain trapped in laboratory settings without the ability to demonstrate their viability at scale.
The productivity crisis in construction labor compounds these material challenges. Construction worker productivity has been steadily dropping for nearly 50 years while other industries have seen dramatic gains through automation and improved processes. The construction industry's resistance to technological adoption, fragmented structure and reliance on traditional methods has put us well behind China and the European Union in construction labor productivity.
That's why our housing shortage cannot be solved with incremental improvement to existing materials and methods. Advanced materials that simplify assembly processes and reduce the specialized skills required for installation could help reverse this productivity decline. Imagine concrete that can also store energy and eliminates your power bill. Structural materials that are stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum, enabling faster assembly with smaller crews. Building systems that integrate recycled insulation, structure and finish materials into single components that dramatically reduce construction complexity.
These innovations are emerging from research laboratories around the world, including many American institutions. While some might succeed without government support, the retreat in Industrial Demonstrations Program funding makes it less likely that homegrown ideas will make it to market. Supporting basic research only to allow the technology to be commercialized overseas is a poor investment of taxpayer dollars.
Despite the loss of grant funding, the window to establish American leadership in materials development has not closed. Congress, for instance, could redirect canceled demonstration funding toward a comprehensive materials innovation initiative focused on housing construction. To be most effective, investments should prioritize technologies that can simultaneously achieve three objectives: reduce construction costs and pollution, accelerate building timelines, and improve housing quality.
This moment represents a strategic inflection point. Global materials markets are already shifting away from traditional materials. America can either lead this transformation, or we could license the technologies from China.