construction-physics.com

Fishing for Souls, by Adriaen van de Venne, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at home price declines, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, The Boring Company’s $4 billion fundraise, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber. California is still not building enough housing.

This is the second installment of my look under the hood of the recently passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, looking at what each provision actually does and trying to suss out its actual impact on housing supply. You can read my previous essay on Title I of the Act here. This time I’ll look at Title II, “Building More in America,” and Title III, “Manufactured Housing For America,” which have 13 and 4 individual provisions respectively.

House over the Bridge by Diego Rivera, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at the Endangered Species Act and housing production, why it’s hard for LEGO to use 3D printing, robotic welding and shipbuilding, modular data centers, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

Home under construction, via Wikipedia. A few weeks ago the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. This is an enormous housing bill that’s been in the works for roughly a year — I first discussed it on Statecraft back in 2025 — and folks are optimistic that it will, per its description, “increase the supply of housing in America.” But actually understanding what, specifically, the law will do is tricky.

The Creation of the World, by Ivan Aivazovsky, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, industrial technology. This week we look at pepper-spray drones, China’s chip Manhattan Project, Commonwealth Fusion’s fundraise, and a proposed Dulles Airport renovation. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber. It’s been a while since we checked in on 3D printed building company Icon.

A battery technology that’s getting a lot of attention is solid-state batteries, lithium-ion batteries that replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid material. Chinese battery manufacturer CATL alone had more than 1,000 people devoted to solid-state battery research as of 2024, and battery manufacturers like BYD, LG, and Samsung are also working on the technology. US and European startups making solid-state batteries have collectively raised over $4 billion as of 2025.

Laguna di Venezia by Anton Melbye, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at China’s EV subsidies, the future of aeroderivative gas turbines, a US-Saudi nuclear deal, defective roadway guardrails, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

3D printed structure, via Wikipedia. Last time in our series on the nature of the construction productivity problem, we looked at economies of scale, finding that capturing economies of scale in homebuilding is difficult. Economies of scale primarily operate on the difference between the costs of the material inputs to some process and the cost of the final product.

Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure and industrial technology. This week we look at a setback for California Forever, a $500 million artillery shell plant not producing any shells, the difficulty of recycling EV batteries, manufacturing wire harnesses, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

An enormous amount of ink has been spilled (some of it by me) on the trials and tribulations of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA. NEPA is what requires projects to perform years-long, thousand-plus page environmental impact studies before construction can begin, and suing a project for an insufficiently detailed environmental study is one of the chief ways environmental groups are able to slow down or stop projects they don’t like.