12 ms·

Wood is renewable when you can grow it, cut it up into useful shapes, then at the end of its useful life, compost it. As soon as you add a shit load of process

• EGreg 5y ago
  Not to mention all that carbon released when the wood decomposes - no ?
  • mikeg8 5y ago
    No expert here but I believe it depends on how it decomposes. If wood rots at the surface, my understanding is more carbon is released into the atmosphere but if it is buried or decomposed using fungi or soil microbes, more carbon is captured into the soil. Forests have a lot of decaying and decomposing deadfall wood but still seem to be a carbon sink so it may be a layering thing...
    • spfzero 5y ago
      That's the reason you use wood chips and bark for mulch in a garden; to add carbon to the soil.
      • canadianfella 5y ago
        Do you have a source for that? That sounds wrong.
      • psd1 5y ago
        It isn't the usual primary reason. You use these things to provide a mulch layer over the top of tilth; it suppresses weed germination. If all you want is to add organics, you'd probably fork in manure.
  • booi 5y ago
    By released I assume you mean into the air? I think only if it's burned?
  • noselasd 5y ago
    It was captured from the air when the wood was grown though - so as long as you maintain the forrest you took the wood from it works out.
  • mensetmanusman 5y ago
    No, not all carbon is released as gas during decomposition. If it were, we wouldn’t have diamonds :)
    • burnished 5y ago
      I don't know enough about diamond formation to properly dispute this, but I thought they didn't form from organic, locally sourced carbon?
  • ajnin 5y ago
    Yes, that's why planting trees to offset carbon emissions is not really as good an idea as it seems, trees can live a long time but they're not immortal, and when they die they release their carbon back into the environment.
    • robotresearcher 5y ago
      If you leave them alone to make baby trees, they can be an amortized constant capture or better. Meanwhile they liberate oxygen, which I enjoy daily.
    • pxndx 5y ago
      If you turn what now is barren land or grasslands into a forest, it absorbs CO2 as it grows, and that CO2 stays captured for as long as that land is a forest, it doesn't matter if individual trees die and decompose.
• soperj 5y ago
  It doesn't last so long in construction, rebar in concrete has like a 75 year lifespan no?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • zardo 5y ago
    Plus or minus 25 years depending on the environment and maintenance. But I would disagree that 75 years is not so long.
  • tedivm 5y ago
    > In reality, their life span is more like 50-100 years, and sometimes less. Building codes and policies generally require buildings to survive for several decades, but deterioration can begin in as little as 10 years.
  • katbyte 5y ago
    Does that not depend if it’s stainless or not?
    • zardo 5y ago
      I think that's only used for structures immersed in seawater. It's not that we can't design buildings to last longer, it's that you don't want to design a building to last two centuries when you know it's probably going to be torn down in 50 years no matter what shape it's in.
      • meltedcapacitor 5y ago
        Stainless steel rebar is also used for (not only seaside) bridges etc, but at 10x the cost it's not going to be in ordinary buildings. If a building is made harder to demolish than its neighbours it's got a better chance to survive. I plan plutonium-core concrete walls for my mausoleum to prevent future generations from interfering with it.
• spfzero 5y ago
  At least this material has a main ingredient that is renewable. No part of steel is renewable right? You can't grow more iron ore (though there is a lot of it lying around). Also I'm doubting "minimal processing" for steel. You have to dig up the ore with giant machines, transport huge amounts of it by train, smash it with a lot of energy and heavy equipment, melt it with a lot of energy and heavy equipment, etc., etc. This seems like the opposite of minimal?
  • xxs 5y ago
    >You can't grow more iron ore Steel is perfectly recyclable, but even then there is plenty of iron on earth. We won't be running out of iron. Edit: Of course, steel is just a name of class of alloys - some of the steel types have a rarer elements like Mo, Ti, V...
  • debacle 5y ago
    Considering that the graphic references basswood, my guess is that the primary component of the final product, by mass, is not wood.
  • mywittyname 5y ago
    Wood also requires heavy equipment to cut, mill, process. Not to mention, it needs a heck of a lot of land area. In addition to whatever process is involved in "hardening" this wood. Plus, steel is entirely recyclable. And it has some natural properties that make is relatively easy to recycle. It can be sorted with magnets, and it has a higher melting point than most impurities.
    • djrogers 5y ago
      The big advantage to wood though, is that while it's growing it's a carbon sink, and once hardened that carbon is likely stored forever.
      • korantu 5y ago
        you can achieve the same effect by making plastic with captured co2 [1]. Carbon would stay in plastic for very long time. This way you get to reuse all the (enormous) existing infrastructure, as well. [1] https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/5/759/pdf https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/5/759/pdf
• ip26 5y ago
  Steel is amazing - and as a result we use it in all kinds of places where its properties aren't fully utilized. Aluminum has been growing into that role of "steel alternative", but there's still room for other alternatives.
  • jjtheblunt 5y ago
    you just reminded me of the marvelous magnesium NeXT cases, before Apple's alumin[i]um became popular.
    • xxs 5y ago
      magnesium is sort of a more expensive version of al.
      • gnabgib 5y ago
        In that it's one electron from it (like Silicon)? Magnesium is 2.2x stronger, 1.08x harder, and 2.05x more costly, 0.65x as thermally conductive and, 0.64x as dense. Think I'm missing your similarity metric
        • burnished 5y ago
          What do you do that the differences between magnesium and aluminum are noteworthy in casual conversation? Machining?
        • katbyte 5y ago
          You just reminded me that I used to have a camera with an magnesium body. That thing was a delightfully tough beast.
        • canadianfella 5y ago
          Because it has similar properties as aluminum. This is obvious. Why play dumb?
        • nl 5y ago
• entropicgravity 5y ago
  In addition progress making steel with a lot less CO2, by using hydrogen (and other techniques) instead of coal has come a long way. This isn't just pie in the sky, the world's second largest steel maker plans to reduce CO2 by 30% before 2030. [1] And of course steel is eminently recyclable. I'm not against wood but steel has some good long term attributes as well. [1]https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/sustainability/climate-action-in-europe https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/sustainability/climate-a...
  • boplicity 5y ago
    Steel production is one of the largest contributors to global C02 emissions. Reducing it by 30% isn't a solution. Unfortunately, zero-carbon-emissions steel is still not feasibile, which is a major, major issue for the health of our planet.
    • elzbardico 5y ago
      We have to start somewhere don’t we?
      • boplicity 5y ago
        Yes -- but it's not a start unless we're making zero-emissions steel possible. Otherwise, it's just more of the same. (Akin to stabbing someone with a 30% smaller knife.)
  • gonzo41 5y ago
    You can also coke iron with carbon from plastic. It's still not super great. But it does reuse plastics which don't get recycled enough.
    • danuker 5y ago
      Reminds me of "Plasteel" from RimWorld.
    • XorNot 5y ago
• wffurr 5y ago
  Exactly which step of this hardened wood process uses glue? I didn’t see that anywhere in the paper.
  • adrian_b 5y ago
    I have not seen the paper, but the process almost certainly does not use any glue. It must use wood compression at very high pressures, which collapses the cell walls in the wood and results in a densified high-strength wood. There have been various methods to make densified wood for structural applications, but I assume that this is an improved process, which makes an even denser and more homogeneous material, which ensures that even blades can be made from it. Edit: According to Phys.org, the improvement over the previous processes is a treatment in a chemical bath that removes the lignin and other components of the wood, leaving only the cellulose, before the compression. This removal of the non-cellulose components ensures that the densified wood is harder and with less defects than those made with the older processes.
• lindseymysse 5y ago
  You can make steel with charcoal, which is carbon neutral in the end: https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation... What I like about this idea is it's a way to take carbon out of the air while manufacturing something. We are going to have to deal with carbon no matter what, why not manufacture things with it?
  • tuatoru 5y ago
    > You can make steel with charcoal Not at the scale at which the world needs steel.
  • 8note 5y ago
    It has a carbon neutral implementation (grow trees, the burn them) but it also has a carbon positive alternative which I much cheaper (cut down existing forests an go out of business once there's no forests) Wood chip heating already has that problem
  • i_am_proteus 5y ago
    Making steel is how we got here. Europe was decimating her forests for charcoal. England ran out first, then turned to coal, then needed to pump water out of coal mines...
    • lindseymysse 5y ago
      Thanks for that history. Alas, no such thing as a free lunch.
      • i_am_proteus 5y ago
        Lunch has never been free. Good reads, if this area interests you, are Fernand Braudel Civilization and Capitalism Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life and Vaclav Smil Energy and Civilization: A History.
• KorematsuFredt 5y ago
  Why are people not considering just growing large trees to capture carbon cut down those trees and just coat them in plastic and throw them at the bottom of ocean/desert or some kind of storage where this carbon can stay trapped for thousands of years ? What am I missing ? I think growing trees is better than just capturing CO2 directly as growing a large forest might have other advantages and a lot of wood can be used for normal human industry as well.
  • amenghra 5y ago
    https://www.terraformation.com/blog/trees-are-a-faster-solution-to-climate-change-than-technology https://www.terraformation.com/blog/trees-are-a-faster-solut...
  • Calloutman 5y ago
    Maybe because trees contain a lot of water/nutrients? Tbh I've always wondered what you've said too, though I'd just dump the wood in old mines etc.
    • Calloutman 5y ago
      I found this https://cbmjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1750-0680-3-1 https://cbmjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1750-0...
  • Ma8ee 5y ago
    Or build houses and bridges and stuff with them instead of concrete.
    • bumby 5y ago
      The US can’t keep up with infrastructure maintenance as it is, let alone moving to materials with shorter lifespans and more maintenance
      • Ma8ee 5y ago
        I don't think that the economy of wood is worse in the long run. It is quite much faster and cheaper to build with, and as long as it isn't allowed to be wet for long periods of time it also lasts indefinitely (there are wooden temples that are 1300 years old), and repairs are usually faster and easier than similar in concrete.
• noja 5y ago
  All good points, but... https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/sorry-folks-oil-does-not-come-dinosaurs https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/sorry-folks-oil-does...
• gilbetron 5y ago
  A benefit of using wood is not composting it in the end. We want to pull carbon out of the air, which trees are good at, but we don't want to let it back into the air when it is done. Adding all the stuff to it increases the longevity, which is helpful. Steel doesn't pull carbon out of the air, unfortunately.
  • munk-a 5y ago
    If half of the material ending up as "wood" in a building is epoxy or some other treatment, though, the efficacy of using buildings for carbon capture seems quite decreased.
    • gilbetron 5y ago
      Not if there is more than a doubling in use of wood. The epoxy, or whatever, makes wood a more compelling construction material, and if it results in far more wood construction, it is a net win.
    • fy20 5y ago
      Well epoxy is basically just lots of hydrogen and carbon with a few other elements - it could work quite well as a carbon sink too. The raw materials to manufacture it are mostly hydrocarbons. Maybe we should be focusing on making "green epoxy" instead.
• carlisle_ 5y ago
  There’s something to be said for the fact that harvesting wood is much more environmentally friendly than petroleum. At the very least a “wood spill” doesn’t exist as far as I know.
  • AdamN 5y ago
    Petroleum is definitely more environmentally friendly than the timber industry. You probably haven't driven around tree farms - monoculture that destroys the environment for hundreds of square miles. Even worse is when they pulp existing forest for things like toilet paper: https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/02/26/u-s-use-of-toilet-paper-wiping-out-canadas-forests/ https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/02/26/u-s-use-of-toilet-paper-...
    • agumonkey 5y ago
      Few things, maybe the way to farm trees is naive and can be done in better ways. Just entice companies to have different ways of working (even if they raise the price a little afterwards) Also petroleum being a big factor in CO2 levels it's hard to not put it first isn't it ?
      • whiddershins 5y ago
        A side benefit of burning the petroleum is trees do grow much faster and bigger. Somehow there is a synergy here we haven’t quite accessed. Burn petroleum => release CO2 => tree grows, sequesters CO2 => use tree for something that doesn’t burn it or compost it … I feel like we are on the edge of figuring this out.
    • KennyBlanken 5y ago
      That's an article about toilet paper usage, not building material. There's no petroleum toilet paper, by the way. Wood is biodegradable, renewable, and recyclable. It can be grown and harvested sustainably; I know because I used to work with a guy who made a living off surveying forestry for sustainable timber harvesting. It causes no environmental issues if left to rot, doesn't have to be disposed of in a particular way. The vast majority (well over 90%) of plastic is not recycled. Plastic never goes away. Plastic just breaks down into microparticles that are now so pervasive there's basically no part of the planet that doesn't have microplastics, no animal that doesn't have them in its digestive system. And all the while, it's leeching out toxic chemicals.
• FpUser 5y ago
  >"As soon as you add a shit load of processing and plastic and other stuff it's not "wood" anymore than gasoline is a dead dinosaur. This is priceless. love it.
• nl 5y ago
  This process doesn't use glue. It relies on compressing wood and removal of ligand.
• skohan 5y ago
  > As for things like plywood that use glue for the laminations...glue is the most expensive and important part of the product I've been using a lot of MDF lately, and it's interesting to think that it's just sawdust and glue. It makes me wonder: are there other fibers which could be used in a similar process which would yield better materials than MDF?
  • ummonk 5y ago
    I think you just reinvented fiberglass and carbon fiber
    • skohan 5y ago
      Oh that's true! Is carbon fiber bonded by glue?
      • fasterbynight 5y ago
        It's bonded by epoxy just like plywood is. Technically plywood is a composite (at least from a mechanical engineering perspective).
• fy20 5y ago
  How is Plywood and OSB recycled (for the municipalities that do so)? Wouldn't the different types of glue (from different manufacturers or grades) cause problems there? Or is it just used as an industrial fuel where the glue is burned off?
• hilbert42 5y ago
  "But it is now old and not so sexy." Yeah, maybe. But you're right, when it comes to metals, steel's vastly most substantial component, iron is about the most abundant metallic element in the universe, so it ain't gonna disappear from our manufacturing materials list anytime soon. Iron and steels have their obvious problems - rust for instance, bad performance high high temperatures is another and it'd be nice if iron had properties more like say titanium but that's wishful thinking. Taming iron to behave the way we want it to has always been and still is a major problem. For example, stainless steel is expensive and it's always been a bit of a kludge (the need for hundreds of different varieties of alloys attest to that; same goes for hardness, for instance, the many tool-steel-like alloys that are needed by industry). If anything, we need considerably more material science research to make iron alloys much better than they are now and thus make them appear very sexy to everyone's eyes.