7 ms·

Toward customizable timber, grown in a lab

85 points by ChuckMcM 4y ago

ChuckMcM 4y ago
This is one of those things I would think would have been tried earlier, but that they have some success is really intriguing. In particular the idea that you can "custom print" arbitrary shapes in wood has a real elf vibe to it. A lot of hand waving around "wood like properties" which I suspect will be a bigger issue going into commercialization, however if they could produce decent pulp replacement then the paper market would be disrupted right away.
simonmesmith 4y ago
Maybe this is an interesting scientific development, but to pitch it as aiding deforestation is a massive stretch. Three quarters of deforestation is due to agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation. So cultured meats would probably have a much bigger impact on deforestation than cultured trees.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  Agreed - and deforestation for lumber tends to be ery specialized woods in less developed parts of the world, not something this approach is going to target. In NA and Europe we do a pretty decent job of harvesting wood grown specifically for lumber and wood products, with multi-generation plantings pretty common - efficient, without the lab and science angle.
  - throwayyy479087 4y ago
    Untrue! There are labs and science, but the labs are all outdoors! There's some really cool test forests you can visit: https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/jericho_research_forest_and_conservation_center https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/jericho_research_forest_and_conser... is an example. Science doesn't just happen indoors - and that's really cool!
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      It's pretty clear from context the gp means "cleanroom lab". And even an outdoor lab has a degree of control that incurs costs that aren't the same as a stand of forestry trees, you don't linearly scale up forestry experiments for harvesting.
- legulere 4y ago
  Other than for meat, growing plants for burning uses up a lot of space: wood for burning, biogas, bioethanol and biomethanol. Around 13% of agricultural land is used in Germany for producing biogas for instance. Photovoltaics uses 1/30th of the land. No new research is needed for this, one would simply need to phase out mandates and subsidies. The money is better used by putting them into the alternatives: Wind and PV for electricity production, heat pumps and electric vehicles for consumption. Biomass only makes sense if you're using waste products or if you need the carbon like in the chemical industry.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Is there anything preventing wind power from being above forests? Every wind farm I've seen has been on empty fields but it doesn't seem impossible that you could use the land for crops or even trees.
    - allannienhuis 4y ago
      Efficiency of wind turbines increases with height above 'ground'. I expect for this purpose the top of the tree canopy would be the ground, so turbines would have to be higher by the amount of the forest canopy height, at least. I expect there are more issues with wind flow over tree canopy vs a crop field, but I suspect the height issue alone is enough to make the economics pretty bad.
      - Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
        Not only that, but the trees would provide habitat for all manner of birds which, to not put too fine a point on it, would end up diced by the turbine blades.
    - rmah 4y ago
      The land owner would make more money 1) cutting the trees and selling the lumber, 2) turning the land into farm land or grazing land, and then finally 3) erecting a wind farm than just doing #3 by itself.
    - 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- asdff 4y ago
  Cultured meats would not change the amount of deforestation. Deforestation happens when a landowner owns a forest, and wants to put it to productive use, and they find from available crops that perhaps the meat industry is the most profitable for them. Absent a meat industry, these landowners aren't just going to give up and pay taxes on useless land, they will find some other industry that will make use of the land they purchased for the sole purpose of exploitation, not conservation. The issue with deforestation is in a lack of protections for forests, not because of any one industry.
  - LeifCarrotson 4y ago
    Cultured meats are a competitor to the meat industry, which is a major contributor (but sure, not the sole contributor) to deforestation. Technologies that financially out-compete those industries until the land is most valuable as a forest are each one step in a permanent, game-theory stable protection for forests. Once you've pulled something superior out of Pandora's box, there's no putting it back in, and no need to use regulation to force consumers to chose that more efficient option. A regulatory approach is only as strong as the social capital and government enforcement that you can muster to put those protections into law, it does nothing to eliminate the old selfish incentives to exploit those natural resources. The instant that you look away, that the regime changes, or you run out of social momentum, deforestation will resume.
    - asdff 4y ago
      What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold. There will always be some use to be had if the land is allowed for private sale, because few people want to just sit on land and pay expenses. Many landowners of large tracts would like for some of that land to work for them. The meat industry is the major contributor today, yes, but if it was gone, there would be another industry as the major contributor. Then another and another, like snakes on Medusa's head. We have shown its a lot faster to just set up a national park than it is to develop technology that eliminates the need for any industry at all to develop on empty land. Sure, governments demand public support in order for their ideas to be maintained, but you could just as easily come up with some hypothetical technology that isn't one of those industries affecting forest today, some new industry or technology, that now has to be stymied to protect the forests. This could happen any time in the future. It will probably happen multiple times, and require more innovation to work out its dependence on land for that one new technology. Now rinse and repeat infinitely into the future as long as you allow forests you intend to protect to be privately owned by individuals or corporations with profit motives.
- hristov 4y ago
  If this prevents one quarter of deforestation it would still be a massive help. Furthermore, the agriculture- lumber difference in deforestation is not that clear cut. When some disgusting criminal in Brazil cuts down a bunch of rainforest for pasture he is also taking into account the resulting lumber in his profit plans. In fact the lumber is probably a big part of the criminal enterprise because it provides an immediate profit whereas raising cows provides profit only after a couple of years. And I am sure our criminal needs the immediate cash flows to pay off Bolsonaro and other corrupt politicians and to hire thugs to chase away protesters and natives. So having lab made wood on massive scale will definitely significantly help with deforestation even the so called agricultural one. Cultured meats or even vegetarian meat substitutes would help as well, but one does not prevent the other and thus one should not be used as an argument against the other. Furthermore, cultured wood should be easier to make than cultured meats. Nobody has to eat the wood, so you do not have to get the taste of the wood right. You just need to get the correct mechanical properties right, which should be much easier. Generally I am very puzzled by this type of arguments against environmental improvements: A is a bad idea because B would make a bigger difference. Well if A would make a significant difference, and A is not in conflict with B, than why not do both?
user3939382 4y ago
I'm happy to be corrected since I'm not an expert in this area, but I believe what's going on is that the logging industry (and its money) is completely in control of the Canadian government which has resulted in us turning ancient, virgin boreal forests in Canada into, for example, Bounty papel towels. If this is indeed what's going on it's pretty sickening. It adds insult to injury that the corporations that damage the environment the most tend to have the strongest PR about "sustainability". In short, I wish we had industrial scale solutions like the one in the post like, yesterday.
- dr_orpheus 4y ago
  > turning ancient, virgin boreal forests in Canada into, for example, Bounty papel towels As pointed out in other comments on this thread, wood and paper products are not the dominant factors in deforestation. The same is true in Canada and they have probably one of the more responsible countries in terms of forestry. [0] "Canada's forest area decreased 0.3% from 3.483 million km2 in 1990 to 3.471 million km2 in 2015. Over this period, most forest converted to other land uses was used for agriculture (42%), mining, oil and gas (24%), built-up area (16%), hydro-electric infrastructure and reservoirs (13%) and forestry roads (6%)." Land that is converted in to something else is the main deforestation, and you could say that last 6% is definitely driven by the forestry industry. Harvesting of timbers for wood products is generally controlled to the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) which is the estimate of how much wood is growing [1]. In other words, only harvest as much wood as you estimate has grown. This isn't to say that deforestation isn't an issue and you shouldn't try and buy paper towels from recycled paper. [0] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2018001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2018001... [1] https://www.alberta.ca/forest-harvest-operations.aspx https://www.alberta.ca/forest-harvest-operations.aspx
  - boplicity 4y ago
    > Land that is converted in to something else is the main deforestation Apparently you can log an old growth forest, and "replant it" and it doesn't count as deforestation. That's the core of the issue here. The question is: should old growth be logged or preserved? The question isn't: should old growth be logged and replaced with brand new trees, which will, apparently, "preserve" the forest land.
vsareto 4y ago
As far as growing speed, hopefully some work can be done to make this a relatively quick growing method: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4406943/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4406943/
skybrian 4y ago
Three months is a long time to wait when building something. Seems like for even for specialty applications, it’s going to make sense for someone to grow them in standard shapes, keep inventory, and ship on demand, possibly cutting them to size. This will add expense, so the application better be worth it. Compare with 3D printing where print times are usually less than typical shipping times.
epaulson 4y ago
What I really hope someone invents is a way to 3D print something that feels like a street tree. I'm fine with it being a lot more expensive because we obviously wouldn't print forests full of them, but being able to put in an urban canopy without having to wait 30 or 40 years would be a game changer. Maybe you 3d print the trunk, and come up with some kind of artificial root system, and splice/graft regular tree limbs onto that substrate and it took 5 years for it to really fill out would be awesome.
- ls15 4y ago
  Real trees play a role in improving air quality in cities: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211221102744.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211221102744.h...
RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
Hmm. I wonder if this can be done under high pressures to 'grow' wood that has the properties of oldgrowth/ hardwoods. Would also seem to me like you might have some control over the cellulose/ hemicellulose/ lignin configuration. This could be used to create some very interesting properties around grain.
- a9h74j 4y ago
  Thinking of bone, perhaps stress/strain during growth could be applied as well. FWIW, there are also videos around of growing fungi into forms (aka growing molds into molds?).
hristov 4y ago
This is great news. In the unlikely case these scientists are looking for some advice, I would say don't worry too much about cute futuristic "I grow my plants in the shape of furniture like an elf in dwarf fortress" use cases, but concentrate on making artificial lumber that is about the same quality as the commonly used lumber in the world. If you provide a no-difference plug in replacement for commodity lumber products that is artificially made and cheaper, you can (1) make lots of money very quickly, and (2) make a very quick and positive difference in deforestation trends and (3) quickly decrease prices of housing and furniture. Then you can worry about 3-d printing live furniture.
- a9h74j 4y ago
  One step up from sheets or extruded shapes, perhaps grow hexagonal comb. Could have useful mechanical properties, and still be generically useful.
- Animats 4y ago
  > concentrate on making artificial lumber that is about the same quality as the commonly used lumber in the world. The idea seems to be to make better lumber. Specialty items such as synthetic slow-growth hardwoods with good properties such as not rotting. Something like teak. Making pine this way seems pointless.
- aredox 4y ago
  Exactly. One of the things that holds back natural materials like wood vs. e.g. steel is the lack of consistency. Knots and gaps in wood are still a problem. Having a single, uniform, standardised, certified, homogenuous, large piece of wood would make it far more convenient for many applications.
hcurtiss 4y ago
The opening to that article is wild. While there is deforestation in some places in the world, at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. I also find that most of these articles discount the value of using the sun. Most lab-grown resources require other forms of energy, almost all of which are decidedly worse for the environment. If somebody invented a machine that used the sun and rainwater to remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce renewable building products, they'd be hailed as some kind of genius/savior. Enter, the lowly tree.
- Arrath 4y ago
  > at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Perhaps so, but is 100 years the best metric? By 1922 a huge portion of the forests in the states had already been ravaged by harvesting, with most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century.
  - hcurtiss 4y ago
    Your dates are off. Mechanized logging didn’t even commence until the 1940s — I think the first cat was like 1945. See the graphic on page 7 of the linked article showing historic harvest in Oregon (with which I’m most familiar). The east coast was harvested before then (a lot by Gifford Pinchot’s family) but I think the point stands that the trend in the states is toward reforestation, and the article’s calculation of losing the world’s forests is preposterous. https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonstimberharvests.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonst...
    - jph 4y ago
      When gold was discovered in northwest California in 1850, speculators crowded the remote redwood region in search of riches and new lives, and companies harvested the trees for booming development. Mechanized logging was widespread there by the early 1900s, such as with steam winches and steam trains, and gang saws and rotary saws. Before the Gold Rush, estimates are redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres of the California coast; today, the area has only 133,000 acres.
082349872349872 4y ago
I'm pretty sure David Jones had a DREADCO/Daedalus column on lab-grown trees, sometime last century, but my poor Google-fu is not turning it up... Edit: "saccharostructive" turns up a hit, but not the one I had recalled; IIRC DREADCO had come up with a scheme (involving both rotation and tension?) to avoid the limited height of traditionally-grown trees.
timbit42 4y ago
Would (pun unintended) this be better than growing hemp or bamboo on already clear cut land and making that into 2x4s, 4x4s and 4x8 plywood? Hemp can grow two crops per season and bamboo can grow feet per day. There are already companies making hemp wood.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  I wonder much resin is needed to keep such plywood together.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    Yes. I've been wondering this. Besides growing faster than trees, apparently hemp holds 60% more carbon than trees which would make for great carbon sequestration.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    I see cardboard is "glued" together using cornstarch.
witnesser2 4y ago
I think maybe replacement of plastic bags could be given a higher priority like artificialize egg plant skin or lotus leaf. When I was at a developing county college. We used the dried palm leaves mattress (without even bleach). It has some smell but nature like dried haystack. Not soft.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I for one welcome our 3d bioprinted plant material overlords.

85 points by ChuckMcM 4y ago

This is one of those things I would think would have been tried earlier, but that they have some success is really intriguing. In particular the idea that you can "custom print" arbitrary shapes in wood has a real elf vibe to it. A lot of hand waving around "wood like properties" which I suspect will be a bigger issue going into commercialization, however if they could produce decent pulp replacement then the paper market would be disrupted right away.

simonmesmith 4y ago

Maybe this is an interesting scientific development, but to pitch it as aiding deforestation is a massive stretch. Three quarters of deforestation is due to agriculture: https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation. So cultured meats would probably have a much bigger impact on deforestation than cultured trees.

skeeter2020 4y ago
Agreed - and deforestation for lumber tends to be ery specialized woods in less developed parts of the world, not something this approach is going to target. In NA and Europe we do a pretty decent job of harvesting wood grown specifically for lumber and wood products, with multi-generation plantings pretty common - efficient, without the lab and science angle.
- throwayyy479087 4y ago
  Untrue! There are labs and science, but the labs are all outdoors! There's some really cool test forests you can visit: https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/jericho_research_forest_and_conservation_center https://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/jericho_research_forest_and_conser... is an example. Science doesn't just happen indoors - and that's really cool!
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    It's pretty clear from context the gp means "cleanroom lab". And even an outdoor lab has a degree of control that incurs costs that aren't the same as a stand of forestry trees, you don't linearly scale up forestry experiments for harvesting.
legulere 4y ago
Other than for meat, growing plants for burning uses up a lot of space: wood for burning, biogas, bioethanol and biomethanol. Around 13% of agricultural land is used in Germany for producing biogas for instance. Photovoltaics uses 1/30th of the land. No new research is needed for this, one would simply need to phase out mandates and subsidies. The money is better used by putting them into the alternatives: Wind and PV for electricity production, heat pumps and electric vehicles for consumption. Biomass only makes sense if you're using waste products or if you need the carbon like in the chemical industry.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Is there anything preventing wind power from being above forests? Every wind farm I've seen has been on empty fields but it doesn't seem impossible that you could use the land for crops or even trees.
  - allannienhuis 4y ago
    Efficiency of wind turbines increases with height above 'ground'. I expect for this purpose the top of the tree canopy would be the ground, so turbines would have to be higher by the amount of the forest canopy height, at least. I expect there are more issues with wind flow over tree canopy vs a crop field, but I suspect the height issue alone is enough to make the economics pretty bad.
    - Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
      Not only that, but the trees would provide habitat for all manner of birds which, to not put too fine a point on it, would end up diced by the turbine blades.
  - rmah 4y ago
    The land owner would make more money 1) cutting the trees and selling the lumber, 2) turning the land into farm land or grazing land, and then finally 3) erecting a wind farm than just doing #3 by itself.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
asdff 4y ago
Cultured meats would not change the amount of deforestation. Deforestation happens when a landowner owns a forest, and wants to put it to productive use, and they find from available crops that perhaps the meat industry is the most profitable for them. Absent a meat industry, these landowners aren't just going to give up and pay taxes on useless land, they will find some other industry that will make use of the land they purchased for the sole purpose of exploitation, not conservation. The issue with deforestation is in a lack of protections for forests, not because of any one industry.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  Cultured meats are a competitor to the meat industry, which is a major contributor (but sure, not the sole contributor) to deforestation. Technologies that financially out-compete those industries until the land is most valuable as a forest are each one step in a permanent, game-theory stable protection for forests. Once you've pulled something superior out of Pandora's box, there's no putting it back in, and no need to use regulation to force consumers to chose that more efficient option. A regulatory approach is only as strong as the social capital and government enforcement that you can muster to put those protections into law, it does nothing to eliminate the old selfish incentives to exploit those natural resources. The instant that you look away, that the regime changes, or you run out of social momentum, deforestation will resume.
  - asdff 4y ago
    What I'm trying to get at is deforestation will always happen if forests are allowed to be sold. There will always be some use to be had if the land is allowed for private sale, because few people want to just sit on land and pay expenses. Many landowners of large tracts would like for some of that land to work for them. The meat industry is the major contributor today, yes, but if it was gone, there would be another industry as the major contributor. Then another and another, like snakes on Medusa's head. We have shown its a lot faster to just set up a national park than it is to develop technology that eliminates the need for any industry at all to develop on empty land. Sure, governments demand public support in order for their ideas to be maintained, but you could just as easily come up with some hypothetical technology that isn't one of those industries affecting forest today, some new industry or technology, that now has to be stymied to protect the forests. This could happen any time in the future. It will probably happen multiple times, and require more innovation to work out its dependence on land for that one new technology. Now rinse and repeat infinitely into the future as long as you allow forests you intend to protect to be privately owned by individuals or corporations with profit motives.
hristov 4y ago
If this prevents one quarter of deforestation it would still be a massive help. Furthermore, the agriculture- lumber difference in deforestation is not that clear cut. When some disgusting criminal in Brazil cuts down a bunch of rainforest for pasture he is also taking into account the resulting lumber in his profit plans. In fact the lumber is probably a big part of the criminal enterprise because it provides an immediate profit whereas raising cows provides profit only after a couple of years. And I am sure our criminal needs the immediate cash flows to pay off Bolsonaro and other corrupt politicians and to hire thugs to chase away protesters and natives. So having lab made wood on massive scale will definitely significantly help with deforestation even the so called agricultural one. Cultured meats or even vegetarian meat substitutes would help as well, but one does not prevent the other and thus one should not be used as an argument against the other. Furthermore, cultured wood should be easier to make than cultured meats. Nobody has to eat the wood, so you do not have to get the taste of the wood right. You just need to get the correct mechanical properties right, which should be much easier. Generally I am very puzzled by this type of arguments against environmental improvements: A is a bad idea because B would make a bigger difference. Well if A would make a significant difference, and A is not in conflict with B, than why not do both?

user3939382 4y ago

I'm happy to be corrected since I'm not an expert in this area, but I believe what's going on is that the logging industry (and its money) is completely in control of the Canadian government which has resulted in us turning ancient, virgin boreal forests in Canada into, for example, Bounty papel towels. If this is indeed what's going on it's pretty sickening. It adds insult to injury that the corporations that damage the environment the most tend to have the strongest PR about "sustainability". In short, I wish we had industrial scale solutions like the one in the post like, yesterday.

dr_orpheus 4y ago
> turning ancient, virgin boreal forests in Canada into, for example, Bounty papel towels As pointed out in other comments on this thread, wood and paper products are not the dominant factors in deforestation. The same is true in Canada and they have probably one of the more responsible countries in terms of forestry. [0] "Canada's forest area decreased 0.3% from 3.483 million km2 in 1990 to 3.471 million km2 in 2015. Over this period, most forest converted to other land uses was used for agriculture (42%), mining, oil and gas (24%), built-up area (16%), hydro-electric infrastructure and reservoirs (13%) and forestry roads (6%)." Land that is converted in to something else is the main deforestation, and you could say that last 6% is definitely driven by the forestry industry. Harvesting of timbers for wood products is generally controlled to the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) which is the estimate of how much wood is growing [1]. In other words, only harvest as much wood as you estimate has grown. This isn't to say that deforestation isn't an issue and you shouldn't try and buy paper towels from recycled paper. [0] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2018001-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/16-201-x/16-201-x2018001... [1] https://www.alberta.ca/forest-harvest-operations.aspx https://www.alberta.ca/forest-harvest-operations.aspx
- boplicity 4y ago
  > Land that is converted in to something else is the main deforestation Apparently you can log an old growth forest, and "replant it" and it doesn't count as deforestation. That's the core of the issue here. The question is: should old growth be logged or preserved? The question isn't: should old growth be logged and replaced with brand new trees, which will, apparently, "preserve" the forest land.

vsareto 4y ago

As far as growing speed, hopefully some work can be done to make this a relatively quick growing method: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4406943/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4406943/

skybrian 4y ago

Three months is a long time to wait when building something. Seems like for even for specialty applications, it’s going to make sense for someone to grow them in standard shapes, keep inventory, and ship on demand, possibly cutting them to size. This will add expense, so the application better be worth it. Compare with 3D printing where print times are usually less than typical shipping times.

epaulson 4y ago

What I really hope someone invents is a way to 3D print something that feels like a street tree. I'm fine with it being a lot more expensive because we obviously wouldn't print forests full of them, but being able to put in an urban canopy without having to wait 30 or 40 years would be a game changer. Maybe you 3d print the trunk, and come up with some kind of artificial root system, and splice/graft regular tree limbs onto that substrate and it took 5 years for it to really fill out would be awesome.

ls15 4y ago
Real trees play a role in improving air quality in cities: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211221102744.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211221102744.h...

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago

Hmm. I wonder if this can be done under high pressures to 'grow' wood that has the properties of oldgrowth/ hardwoods. Would also seem to me like you might have some control over the cellulose/ hemicellulose/ lignin configuration. This could be used to create some very interesting properties around grain.

a9h74j 4y ago
Thinking of bone, perhaps stress/strain during growth could be applied as well. FWIW, there are also videos around of growing fungi into forms (aka growing molds into molds?).

hristov 4y ago

This is great news. In the unlikely case these scientists are looking for some advice, I would say don't worry too much about cute futuristic "I grow my plants in the shape of furniture like an elf in dwarf fortress" use cases, but concentrate on making artificial lumber that is about the same quality as the commonly used lumber in the world. If you provide a no-difference plug in replacement for commodity lumber products that is artificially made and cheaper, you can (1) make lots of money very quickly, and (2) make a very quick and positive difference in deforestation trends and (3) quickly decrease prices of housing and furniture. Then you can worry about 3-d printing live furniture.

a9h74j 4y ago
One step up from sheets or extruded shapes, perhaps grow hexagonal comb. Could have useful mechanical properties, and still be generically useful.
Animats 4y ago
> concentrate on making artificial lumber that is about the same quality as the commonly used lumber in the world. The idea seems to be to make better lumber. Specialty items such as synthetic slow-growth hardwoods with good properties such as not rotting. Something like teak. Making pine this way seems pointless.
aredox 4y ago
Exactly. One of the things that holds back natural materials like wood vs. e.g. steel is the lack of consistency. Knots and gaps in wood are still a problem. Having a single, uniform, standardised, certified, homogenuous, large piece of wood would make it far more convenient for many applications.

hcurtiss 4y ago

The opening to that article is wild. While there is deforestation in some places in the world, at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Forest harvest followed by replanting is not deforestation. I also find that most of these articles discount the value of using the sun. Most lab-grown resources require other forms of energy, almost all of which are decidedly worse for the environment. If somebody invented a machine that used the sun and rainwater to remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce renewable building products, they'd be hailed as some kind of genius/savior. Enter, the lowly tree.

Arrath 4y ago
> at least in the US, there are more trees today than there were 100 years ago. Perhaps so, but is 100 years the best metric? By 1922 a huge portion of the forests in the states had already been ravaged by harvesting, with most of the old-growth forests gone by the turn of the century.
- hcurtiss 4y ago
  Your dates are off. Mechanized logging didn’t even commence until the 1940s — I think the first cat was like 1945. See the graphic on page 7 of the linked article showing historic harvest in Oregon (with which I’m most familiar). The east coast was harvested before then (a lot by Gifford Pinchot’s family) but I think the point stands that the trend in the states is toward reforestation, and the article’s calculation of losing the world’s forests is preposterous. https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonstimberharvests.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/odf/Documents/workingforests/oregonst...
  - jph 4y ago
    When gold was discovered in northwest California in 1850, speculators crowded the remote redwood region in search of riches and new lives, and companies harvested the trees for booming development. Mechanized logging was widespread there by the early 1900s, such as with steam winches and steam trains, and gang saws and rotary saws. Before the Gold Rush, estimates are redwood forest covered more than 2,000,000 acres of the California coast; today, the area has only 133,000 acres.

082349872349872 4y ago

I'm pretty sure David Jones had a DREADCO/Daedalus column on lab-grown trees, sometime last century, but my poor Google-fu is not turning it up... Edit: "saccharostructive" turns up a hit, but not the one I had recalled; IIRC DREADCO had come up with a scheme (involving both rotation and tension?) to avoid the limited height of traditionally-grown trees.

timbit42 4y ago

Would (pun unintended) this be better than growing hemp or bamboo on already clear cut land and making that into 2x4s, 4x4s and 4x8 plywood? Hemp can grow two crops per season and bamboo can grow feet per day. There are already companies making hemp wood.

actionfromafar 4y ago
I wonder much resin is needed to keep such plywood together.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Yes. I've been wondering this. Besides growing faster than trees, apparently hemp holds 60% more carbon than trees which would make for great carbon sequestration.
- timbit42 4y ago
  I see cardboard is "glued" together using cornstarch.

witnesser2 4y ago

I think maybe replacement of plastic bags could be given a higher priority like artificialize egg plant skin or lotus leaf. When I was at a developing county college. We used the dried palm leaves mattress (without even bleach). It has some smell but nature like dried haystack. Not soft.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

I for one welcome our 3d bioprinted plant material overlords.