Engineered Timber - building the skyscrapers of our future.
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2022
- Modern technology has enabled timber to be engineered in such a way that it can be used as an apparently "carbon negative" replacement for steel in very tall buildings. Timber cities might therefore become a very real part of our future. But can we afford the land required to create vast new timber plantations? Now a new research paper has crunched the numbers...
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Research links
Potsdam Research Paper
www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
Mass Timber Code Coalition Factsheet
www.thinkwood.com/wp-content/...
International Code Council
www.iccsafe.org/about/who-we-...
ATF
www.atf.gov/laboratories/fire...
Guardian Article
www.theguardian.com/environme...
Our World in Data
ourworldindata.org/global-lan...
Greenpeace Report - "Feeding the Problem"
www.greenpeace.org/static/pla...
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Great that you’ve raised soil depletion in this mass plantation context. The subject might be worth an episode of its own, particularly the effect on crop productivity and human nutrition.
It seems to me that there could be a happy middle-ground. Instead of planting *monocultures* of a timber tree, it would be better to plant a variety of tree species able to be used for lumber, including faster growing hardwood species, so that the 'forest' would *actually work* like a natural forest. Then select cut the trees in patches of a few acres, and replant.
another option would be to convert big parts of current monoculture agriculture areas to agroforestry, with trees that could be used for building but also provide agro-ecologic value (such as nitrogen fixation, shading, host for birds fighting pests, etc.)
@@andreaferrero6533 hmm, I think they will rather plant fruit trees than timber trees.
Plums, not oaks.
Mimicking forests through planting makes sense.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors..
@@b_uppy brilliant
@@موسى_7 many fruit and nut trees produce quality hardwood as well as fruits. Cherry pecans apple comes to mind first for me but that's what grows in my area.
Would this be a good time to look again at Hemp? It is incredibly fast growing; the lignin can be used in Cellulose Nono-fibre production for extremely strong composites (lumber alternatives?) - with 'strength/weight ratio is 8 times that of stainless steel'. The rest of the plant can be pressed into service in other ways, like for Hempcrete - for panels or cladding with very high insulation values.
* what's the strength to volume ratio compared to CRES??
What is the Young's modulus of hemp?
How about the compressive strength?
One quickly runs out of footprint to put more support material when you start to build higher.
Stainless is used as a cladding exactly because it doesn't really degrade in weather and can't sustain combustion, as well as not being a significant contribution to volume (reducing useable space)
Grate idea Maybe bamboo could be used instead of timber also incredibly fast growing. Just need someone to investigate.
@@jimurrata6785 stainless not very strong either! Stainless steel screws died much faster than ceramic coated ones in docks located in the Florida Keys. Stainless ones actually sucked all the way around!
@@freethinker4991 bamboo is great earthquake resistant but structural only up to three stories, from what I’ve seen.
@@TheLosamatic There are a lot of different 'stainless steel' alloys. Quite a few of the aerospace focused ones would be better described as nickel/cobalt super-alloys than steel.
I used the term to address Cy, who started with "hemp has eight times the strength of stainless steel "
Aaaah.... possibly... In pure tension... with no other factors considered. But this video is about building skyscrapers of mass timber.
Which, in itself, is highly processed and not objectively better suited for tall buildings than dung.
You use a material like wood for stick framing because it is _already_ nature's composite. Lightweight and needs minimal processing. This works fine at 4-5 stories.
As a carpenter, I struggle with the elephant in the room of my career, & that is the destruction of life to make the raw materials I use.
As such, I spend time researching trees, forests, & what makes them healthy, & how I can reduce my own impact.
To me it seems that monoculture plantations are where the problem lies. They are largely sterile & lack the diversity needed to perform long term carbon sequestration that old natural forests are so good at.
Plantations should be replaced with carefully managed , & more importantly diverse, forests. Cut down what we need, but ensure there is always ground cover to keep nutrients in the soil.
Another way of thinking of this is modern farming. Monoculture crops are cut down & the soil left bare. This is the equivalent of taking a razor to one’s arm & shaving off all of the skin. Everything underneath will die.
If this topic interests you, I highly recommend Peter Wohlleben’s “The Hidden life of trees”. One of the most interesting & eye opening books I have ever read.
I have an idea.
Encourage people to own forests and hunt deer on their private property.
If it is public there is tragedy of commons.
The idea is that to sustain deer, it has to be biodiverse. They can also get lumber from it when they need it.
Also, deer fur makes great winter coats and they used it before gore-tex and other synthetics.
Another piece of the solution needs to be individuals doing the same thing. Death to lawns and all other artificial monocultures!
Check out Mark Shepard. Mimicking forests to grow more, better food while replacing bad ag practices would be zero 'compromise,' all plusses.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
@@موسى_7 you've just described the lifestyle of the average person from Alabama
@@b_uppy Thanks for the recommendation! Just grabbed the audiobook from my library, will give it a listen very soon. Doug Tallamy turned me into a complete zealot for this stuff. :)
As someone who's grown up in a timber-industry state (Maine), mass timber construction is certainly intriguing. I'm personally inclined to advocate for doing what's possible to decarbonize steel and concrete, then "fill the gaps" with solutions like mass timber. Steel and concrete are used far beyond the construction industry, so improving that has a wider scope of impact.
I've "grown up" in the construction industry. My concern regarding concrete and steel, is that they are not renewable from a source other than demolition and recycling. Timber does have a renewable source, from planting. However I totally agree that losing the natural forestation and animal and plant diversity is bonkers!
Gee someone who can walk and rub his tummy at the same time how clever told you so
Mass timber construction is one solution among many to capture carbon.
Diverse tree farms could even be planted in a sparse way, to allow pasture grasses to grow underneath (silvopasture) to feed sheep and goats (they produce a little less methane than cows).
Mimicking forests to grow more, better food while replacing bad ag practices would be all plusses.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
@@bubbleox8631
Someday you'll be able to do that as well.
Speaking as an architect I'd love to design more timber buildings.
Then perhaps you can let us know why you don't.
@@larryadlard8851 I'd guess that their customers don't want them. No money, no design, no wood.
Is insect infestation/damage not an issue?
@@ChrisBigBad that's certainly part of the equation, lack of knowledge and lack of infrastructure is part of it. There's plenty wood where I live but when the will to turn it into anything other than floors and roofs if often lacking. House builders are petrified of innovation because customers and insurers expect a 'standard' house. And so that's what they deliver.
@@dwftube not really, it would take decades for bugs to eat away a structure like that, at least outside of exposed tropical environments
Yes, reduce land used to produce food for livestock, accelerate alternative plant based food production, and use more timber, (not from native ecosystems) for construction.
Here in Wales there is so much land that, if left to its own devices, and not constantly grazed by sheep, would be naturally forested.
If marginal hill farming of sheep was replaced with a well thought out, diverse forest planting, useful timber could be produced.
There are many other places across the UK that have been over grazed for so long (like Scotland), people think it's meant to be like this...
@@alilonghair7792 Absolutely. And it would provide a lot more jobs than sheep farming too.
yeah alot of plantations were planted as such monocrops we can they support about 10% of life the old growth does, newer planting methods get up to 60-70% weird that to make the forest healthier we need to cut trees down
Increase the herds of ruminants! Better for health and the environment too! The water tables are expanded, fixes carbon into the soils horizons whilst producing nutrient dense evolutionary appropriate human foods.
Climate change is baked into the atmospheric physics for the next 1/2 million years! It is unstoppable!
@@thalesnemo2841 the research on controlled intensive grazing is pretty controversial multiple studies showing opposite results.its not clear enough to make bold statements like this till the research catches up to prove it one way or the other. its just not there yet. but trees can grow in places where herds just arent practical, if it works we need to try everything.
Recent studies have found that newly planted immature forests are actually carbon sources for the first 15 or so years of growth and only become carbon sinks after the forest reaches a minimum level of maturity. More could be done with such things as bamboo and hemp as construction materials. And lets face it, sky scrapers don't last as long as forests. And if that's not enough, all that carbon sequestered in a forest is locked up in much much more than just the trunks of the trees.
I don't think Dave covered this counterpoint. Good to keep in mind.
To make a general assumption based on studies from a small areas do not work very well. You also have to look at the different terms used to assess the results.
Willow can be harvested after 5-6 years and 15 year old Poplar trees can be 10-12 meter tall threes when harvested. If the studies was covering everything Willow and Poplar threes farmed would generate carbon dioxide from nothing since they never get old enough.
@@bknesheim The carbon isn't coming from the growing trees. And I agree, it most definitely needs more study, particularly if our remaining forests are going to be turned wholesale into tree plantations with a massively reduced range of biodiversity.
Is that because of the carbon emissions of the harvesting process? I wonder if more efforts could be made to decarbonize the farming process, such as electric trucks and harvesters.
At least there used to be an accounting based "emission" from reforestation on agricultural lands. It stemmed from this approach: agricultural lands was assumed to have the carbon content of a wheat field just before harvest, whereas a newly planted forest only had what was actually bound in the biomass. Turning a piece of land from agriculture to forest thus figured as a loss of carbon to the atmosphere. Only when the actual biomass of the new forest is at level with a mature wheat field will the accounting system register the forest as a net positive. In Denmark (my region) this meant net emissions for 6-9 years. This accounting method disregard the fact the the biomass in the wheat field is temporary, whereas the biomass in the tree are way less so. Don't know if it's still the way it's done, though.
One, often forgotten way to increase crops yields and reduce the need for fertilizers and pesticides is to cultivate species together that complement each other instead of just one on the same field. I'm sure there are certain trees that could be grown along side key crops to manage this without the need for extra land: if that makes sense on a commercial scale is a different story
Unfortunately not, given the way we irrigate and harvest them.
You're not going to see giant combines weaving between rows of trees.
Wind breaks are still a viable and valuable thing.
I'm no advocate of current farming practices, but that genie is already out of the lamp.
The issue with harvesting that complimentary planting cannot fix is the loss of certain elements in the soil.
E.g. we cannot add Phosphorus or Potassium by planting other crops. We can free up some from the soil, but that's a temporary measure if you keep harvesting.
@@markp8295 You're right there.
A big part of that is natural flooding has been largely eliminated.
Phosphorus, potassium and other minerals are eroded from rock high in the watershed.
Annual floods used to deposit all this silt across the vast plains of the American Midwest.
But that doesn't happen any more at scale. Farmers wouldn't stand for the disruption to their schedules and growing season.
So we've got dams, levees and dikes constructed at great expense to protect permanent settlements from life giving natural processes.
@@jimurrata6785
"We are not going to see giant combines weaving between rows of trees"
True, but how about small robot combines?
Business as usual is not possible in most areas so why should farming be the exception?
As for nutrients from weathered rocks, how about spreading crushed rocks on the fields instead of waiting for the flood?
According to another video this accelerated weathering of rocks would bind CO2 as well.
Win win win?
Traditional growth of wind breaks in fruit growing in the past, like poplar, then gave a source of fast growing timber to make the packing boxes from. The trees give shelter from the wind and a good micro climate. I think this kind of thinking is essential to find solutions to land management issues. Monoculture deserts with no hedges are unhealthy in so many ways!
I think I'd prefer to see a more moderate approach to timber construction. Instead of trying to build as high as possible with it, aiming for a higher proportion of mixed-use buildings, 5-over-1 type constructions, would marry a more walkable urban environment with a reduced need for the highest strength glulam, I imagine making the stock available go further.
I do love the fact that with gypsum panels buildings could be near fireproof too. I would be interested to see how well it could work for fire prone areas now that we're dealing with greater threat of wildfire
Gosh, I wish thats what my city was like. We used to have walkability and mixed use, and now its suburbs. Theyre still building more but now they have HOA’s and the houses theyre building arent even nice!
I wish there was a way to convince people to move back to city so we could bulldoze the ugly and wasteful stuff. Then the land could become farmland again and some of the old farmland could become prairies and forest.
That's what I thought immediately as well. Engineered wood or not our land use practices (in the west) tend to be piss poor. Super density in the CBDs then a rapid tapering off of hight into detached single family housing for hectares, it'd be shame full even if it wasn't such a waste.
I agree. There are projects of this kind in Sweden for example. The idea was to make main focus on wooden residential housing with moderate height(5-8 floors) - higher heights demanded more expenses by the way - and offer good locations for them. Human scale friendly size and good location could help as well to - believe it or not - overcome certain fear of living in higher wooden buildings people still may have.
I agree wholeheartedly. The challenge is getting resident's associations/homeowners associations to allow these types of developments in detached single family home areas that dominate North America.
Losing biodiversity is the most destructive of the choices presented in this episode. Biodiversity has taken enough of a hit throughout history from human behavior.
Losing biodiversity should Not be considered as part of any plan.
@@FqYIwgsiRW2MaTDc primarily, lacking biodiversity is a serious threat to the ecosystem due to how easily a single change affects the entire food web. A significant drop in one specific species caused by over consumption or a disease will result in a death spiral that can easily result in even more species dying out.
"Huge plantations that already exist, mainly to supply wood pellets for combustion power stations". I had no idea. Would be really interested to hear more about this
They’ve been cutting lumber in North Carolina to ship to Europe as “biofuel”. 🤦♀️
@@christinearmington yeah yesterdays NYT right? Burning wood is about as insane as we have ever been.
It is a perfect example as to why we should not be relying on government to regulate us out of this problem.
@@FqYIwgsiRW2MaTDc the alternative is the development of technologies that make the old ways obsolete.
Another great video Dave 👏👏👏
I hope we head into that 90% scenario, but not at the expense of the already fragile natural ecosystems, I hope we go in the direction of reduction of meat consumption and plantation of trees within the agricultural fields in kind of partial agroforestry and hopefully this engineered timber can be produced with a mix of trees allowing us to reduce the spread monoculture...
Doesn't have to be. Sewage to grow poplar, or resin plus plant fibres from reeds or cattails could give us all we need.
Thank you for another great video!
This one seems pretty straightforward to me. We need every bit of remaining wild land left on this planet, so any solution that involves creating vast new tree plantations is a no go. In fact we need to _increase_ the amount of forested land worldwide, not with managed plantations but by replanting existing forests (or in some cases just protecting the land from exploitation and leaving it alone). Creating new forest plantations for the industrial scale production of mass timber would just be replicating the mistake we made with palm oil.
But mass timber is still a really interesting technology with a bright future. It could still have a role to play in our cities, just not at the level where 90% of all new construction is made from it. I don't know if this is even possible, but if they could use more prolific sources of lignin than hardwood, like bamboo, then maybe truly epic quantities of treated lumber could be produced from smaller plantation sizes. Some types of bamboo can grow a meter per day...
In the big picture, it seems like greater greenhouse gas reductions could be had by decarbonizing the steel and concrete industries. There are only so many steel and concrete plants. It's an achievable goal to target each one and modify them with new green technologies.
I think it would be interesting to see a video about possible cement and steel industry changes that make them carbon neutral. For steel, using high-quality "biochar" (charcoal made from a variety of plant matter) could gradually replace coke in the manufacturing process.
Also solidia (non-hydraulic) cement sequesters CO2 in its curing process, where portland cement (the most commonly used cement) emits CO2
I think that trees can be planted in urban areas in addition to existing and future tree farms. Also, silvopasture (the practice of planting trees on cattle grazing land) is another solution as well.
Urban trees are avoided with prejudice by sawmills. One nail can ruin a 500 dollar belt saw by chipping a tooth and making it cut crooked. No. No city trees. It will not happen unless the blades were subsidized.
Water is a factor, so is behavior, even without natural predators, but trees will allow more water to accumulate. Sensors in ear marks? They are cheap enough.
I'd prefer something like hemp blocks or mushroom based wall filler, which grow faster and don't have a 30 year wait time for new growth of forest for houses past the current ten year current window we have to reduce emissions.
But this technology would be meant to replace the steel for skyscrapers. The stuff you mentioned would be great for homes.
@@artboymoy Some of the figures presented was 90% of all new buildings, that includes homes.
@@artboymoy Can't we engineer hemp wood like we engineer timber?
@@artboymoy i think the way to go would be to reserve concrete and steel only for basements, timber for large buildings and straw/hemp based organic products for houses and small buildings.
That has it's limitations and is cement heavy.
Mimicking forests through planting makes sense.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors..
This way at the end of the tree's life-cycle you also end up with timber.
It's an ecologically sound as it supports wildlife,soil rebuilding,is diverse and avoids chemical use...
Thanks for your time mate, I always look forward to your show, I easily find out information that I normally wouldn't. There's a lot to take in with this episode so I'll be watching it more than once.
Thanks again much appreciated, bye.
Good video Dave.
You outlined the technology in basic terms to set the record straight up front, then by the end you've provided a number of constructive and destructive aspects surrounding this technology that leaves the viewer thinking and judging for themselves.
Bang-on content. You just feel more educated after watching ones like this
I think we should aim for the middle line of 50% timber buildings because if you combine that with reduced co2 from better steel making and incentivize lab grown or artificial meats you can use more of that farmland for trees rather than cattle
force people to stop eating meat, reduce how many fast food and factory farm can serve meat. Change agriculture completely and make lab grown trees. The best plan for the future is fil las many rockets as we can with as many people we can and blow them up on their way to Mars
I think Albedo effect is overstated. People speak of it as though we're painting a light-colored surface a dark color. That would be true for rocks and other minerals. Dark-colored minerals absorb light energy, storing and radiating it as heat to the surrounding air. It is not true for plants, which absorb CO2 and solar energy and metabolize it to create food for the plant through photosynthesis. Plants tend to lower air temperatures through shading the ground (which would otherwise radiate heat into the atmosphere) and evapotranspiration. The other concerns about man-made forest plantations replacing natural forests is valid, though. There are crops that could be replaced with wood plantations, as mentioned in the video. But we can also take advantage of the fact that there are wood species that grow in soil unsuitable for farming.
Hello! There might be an interesting study to be made. Since "engineered" timber can be made out of a variety of materials, wood, bamboo, hemp, a question to ask is: Are there economically viable plants that can be grown on soils unused? From the ocean to the deserts or depleted farmland there is enough unused space. No destruction needed or already happened... ^_^
Intriguing idea, timber frame and engineered lumber. It seems like part of a noble effort, at least. You and Matt Ferrell are true UA-cam gems. Thank you.
Thanks Dave. This is an excellent use of the channel. Keep up the good work
Thanks Brian. Will do!
The increase in trees harvested for engineered lumber may be offset by reductions in trees cut for other purposes.
Did they consider that concrete construction use a lot of plywood forms to hold the concrete in place until it's sets?
Not sure what is used for forms with precast concrete? Concrete floors in skyscrapers have steel as the subfloor.
Thank you for this! I was wondering if we could use lots of wood to build. All the wood farms in the US made for burning could as well be used for building. They should get solar energy.
Wood pellets for heat and power are a biofuel, and like all biofuels, propped up by government subsidies and incentives. So, yes, you could convert (most of) the wood pellet industry to other uses like timber plantations in the same way you get back a lot of the land from corn ethanol. Stop encouraging biofuels. They're mostly not very competitive on their own merits, so in theory, not that hard to stop.
The catch is, where does the solar go? The answer far too often is: Where forests are now.
@@cmwh1te References, please.
Solar and agriculture go well together - the panels creating shade for both animals and sensitive crops.
WInd farms interfere very little with open agricultural land.
@@cmwh1te I dont have a forest on my roof
So many interesting comments. 💙 Thanks for the efforts.
Glad you touched on the meat production aspect, that is key.
Of course trees can be widely spaced which in many cases can benefit agriculture
I don’t agree often with Greenpeace but they are right that getting rid of existing natural forests and loosing animal and plant diversity for planting construction lumber is bogus.
Losing & bonkers. It’s time to reverse assault on nature, to value products of evolution. It’s our only planet, way more value intact than as charred putrid dead mess.
I live in the US West, which is currently suffering Wildfires. We were formerly a "Logging" area, now, we've burning up. Oh, and my Air Quality is "unhealthy". Every day - until we get some rains. Remember, our Earth is getting hotter?
Is it possible to walk and rub your tummy at the same time?
@@bubbleox8631 You should explain yourself. Multitasking generally involves one dumb automatic function, not two requiring considerable cognitive input.
We can grow food and timber in the US and replace bad ag practices at the same time. We'd do it through mimicking forests.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
Monoculture crops could easily be made less "mono" by interspersed managed indigenous species or even cropping indigenous hardwoods which might be slower to grow but could be a excellent intergenerational investment.
As always, enjoyed the presentation and the intriguing topic. Thank you. It seems to me that the answer has to be all of the above: use engineered timber using wood grown on already farmed land ( which is in turn made available by reducing meat consumption) and also reduce the carbon footprint of cement and steel and while we are at it maybe reduce human population and consumption in general.
I was not aware of the impact of aforestation on warming. I live in a foothills area that was primarily grassland and shrubland before all these towns popped up. Now there are so many trees that you can hardly see buildings when you look down from the hills. I am not sure if that is good or bad. On the one hand the shrubgrass was already plundered but I am not sure if we added insult to injury by planting so many trees.
Really liked this one. The reforestation of areas is something I really think the UK needs. Obviously we’d not get 2 times the size of Texas but the benefits to our water table would also be great.
As someone who has been looking into planting trees for timber, there are a few things that should be noted.
Massive reductions in actual new land needed can be achieved quite easily. There are currently hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland that are barely profitable to farm, but are farmed because the farmer can't rent out or sell the 8 out of 500 acres of poorly performing land. A subsidy for planting of trees for timber on poorly performing farmland could be a very attractive option for those farmers, especially as the income from tree harvests start rolling in and word spreads. Also, as the area is already heavily farmed, no reductions in biodiversity will occur.
Then there's also conversion of current used farmland (which is only profitable due to subsidies) to timber growing. A good example is in Brazil, where the state heavily subsidies beef production, if they didn't subsidise so heavily, the land needed for beef would diminish, leaving space open for timber. This wouldn't even require bans or consumer action.
Also, you can plant a variety of wild flowers between trees (as long as you ensure compatibility), which would either help maintain, or in some cases increase biodiversity (especially on previously intensely farmed soil).
And as mentioned in the video, relatively small reductions in subsidies/consumption of red meat (even if replaced with other meat, like chicken) could on a mass scale free up tens or hundreds of thousands of acres of previous cornfields for timber production.
In our region, the trees are only productive on decent land & rainfall. And industry likes heavy concentration for harvest. In particular, few edges. Plantations aren’t afterthoughts. Economics generally doesn’t favour trees, just too long term, risky.
@@iandavies4853 thats where subsidies come in and reduce the cost of the risk involved in growing trees. Our markets aren't build to take messures against the problems of our time. Regulation and subsidisation are essential to move the market to where it needs to be.
Additionally increasing biodiversity in wood plantations reduces risk of desease and catastrophic events. We learn this in europe right now. Learning from the mistakes of others states should fund the build up of divers tree plantations.
@@TheTpointer I agree society needs to divert funds to failures of economics, though politicians generally fail miserably in crafting such measures, pick winners (losers). I (still) favour a carbon tax, as one part of general solution, but room for (smart) subsidies too.
Our economic, politics, legal systems are just too crude, too corrupt, too uninterested in ecology etc.
There is an alternative that is an excellent compromise and will help smaller farmers. Mimicking forests to grow more, better food while replacing bad ag practices would be all plusses.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
Additionally trees transpire a huge amount of moisture they would naturally contribute to the albedo effect, contrary to claims by some.
@@TheTpointer if something requires subsidies to work it is not a valid solution.
A friend of mine was testing their product for fire safety. They built a room and set it on fire. They had used engineered beams in the ceiling. The beam delaminated before anything else failed. So they had to rebuild the room and do the test again. This was over 15 years ago.
I don’t feel engineered lumber is bad it’s just new and you have to be careful with quality control in new technologies.
Compressed straw is a fire retardant and a good insulator.
Great video as always
Modibot made a good point: AGW means environment is heating.
Hence suitability of areas for forestry is changing.
Rainfall, drought periods, fire risk, winds all change.
Intriguing. Thank you! Channel question: Are you looking into thermoacoustic heat pumps? You did a great video over 1yr ago on Fluid Dynamics' Stirling Engine heat pump, which is similar, but Blue Heart Energy's tech has fewer moving parts. Ecop's Rotation Heat Pump also uses noble gases and doesn't rely on a phase change, but is intended for industry. It's worth mentioning the earth's helium situation regarding these solutions, though. Just suggestions. Great channel!
phase change seems to be the way of scaling up waste to scale down cost to use cheapest form of energy we have, mantle heat duh
turning rocket fuel into turbine heat has a place, if you make it with inexhaustible (infinitely better then renewable) heat acting on air blackening and bricking the nitrogen right?
Back nitrogen bricks are phase change sponges for energy needing thougt, funding, elaboration in a nuclear world that thinks of quaint fission.
Fission is for bombs, 'burning' black nitrogen emissionlessly has my attention.
Think Too… well I don’t get the first response you received? But it sure sounds interesting to me thanks, I’ll look into that really sounds cool using sound to make things heat up by vibration!?!
I've been wondering about mass timber for some time now, so thank you for this episode! I love the look of mass timber buildings, but the proliferation of this building technique unsettles me. I agree that cutting primary forest to support this growing industry would be disastrous, in the same way logging to create wood pellets that will be burned for electricity is a really bad idea. We have enough energy alternatives that this type of bioenergy should be limited to only allow the use of scrap wood materials, which might be the same materials used for mass timber so let's stop burning it, period.
The short fibers from scrap wood are not very strong. The type of engineered laminated wood for large building need long fibers for strength so it most to be cut from whole timbers.
The problem with allowing them to burn scrap, they always find it cheaper and easier to start from trees.
Just like virtually all toilet paper is made directly from trees, it is possible to use recycled paper, but the makers like having a simpler process.
Frankly it is too cheap to cut down trees for paper and for burning. Tax it so recycling is cheaper.
If you go to Gardemoen, Trondheim or Aalborg airports you’ll see some fantastic looking structural timber supporting the roofs of these buildings.
I did not check the complete study but does it take into account that steel can be made with far less CO2 émission using H2 and cement processes can also improve overtime?
As always the solution will be a mix of advances in different areas
Only thing is that the H² would have to be Green H² or somewhat equivalent. The process to get H² must be without releasing CO² or any other greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Currently these processes are fewer and have not fully resolved the transportation and storage of H² in a significant way to make steel and concrete a viable green method of construction. Still a long way from this happening; I would say at least minimum 10 years away.
@@Drought-jr6pb Why transport hydrogen when you can transport electricity for electrolysis with existing infrastucture?
Check out SSAB's HYBRIT project. They are doing exactly that, running electrolysis plants in site and just storing hydrogen for later use.
@@Drought-jr6pb So, decade to construct H2 production industry powered by RE, parallel decade to construct H2 iron production industry (eg in Pilbara, Australia). I agree, neither will be under a decade, but economics will drive disruption more than politics (ethics).
@@pikkuraami So you are right about SSAB HYBRIT system, if what they say on their website is right, it will cost about $27 million per electrolysis plant (not storage) and they have 3 plants that use blast furnace. But it also mentions that these plants require 15 Twh per year.
Wikipedia says it takes at least 440 KWh to produce a ton of steel using an Electric Arc Furnace. The biggest SSAB blast furnace plant produces 2.6 Millon tonnes of steel and based on calculations I did an Electric Arc Furnace that if it could produce the same amount of steel would only use 1.144 Twh of electricity. And SSAB already has 2 Electric Arc Furnace plants in the US. Why not just convert the 3 existing blast furnace plants to Electric Arc Furnace plants and use less electricity from renewable sources.
I am NOT a steel industry specialist so I don't know if Electrical Arc Furnace would do the same job when producing crude steel as producing scrap steel, but if it does or can be adjusted to do the same job, it might be worth while to go in that direction. Also I assume the Electric Arc Furnace plant will cost much more to build but the annual savings on electricity would be substantial (10% of the HYBRIT system). Less demand on the electric grid in the future, since Sweden itself uses about 133.5 Twh annually.
@@iandavies4853 As far as I could find out the Pilbara project is not operational yet and it is just method of producing H² in western Australia for eventually transport to South Korea and Japan. But to this day there is no tanker built in the world that can transport Hydrogen. But of course you can convert hydrogen to ammonia (NH³) to ship globally however when you combust ammonia it will produce nitrogen oxide gas, which is bad for humans and can cause acid rain. But I'm pretty sure there are ways around this.
Thank you for this well done effort to examine wood for tall buildings. I wonder if the study looked at decreasing pulp production in favor of longer tree-crop rotations to achieve larger diameter timber? In the Southeastern US where I live, pine trees are pretty much the only "crop" the soil can grow. But the vast majority of this pine is harvested for pulp, paper, tissue, cardboard, etc. Leaving these same trees to grow larger, in longer crop rotations, has the additional benefit of greater ecological diversity and soil carbon sequestration.
wouldn't that mean reducing the demand for paper products, like our presenter here wouldn't have dozens of books collecting dust for decoration.
@@Lildizzle420 Or substituting tree pulp with hemp for paper production.
@@Lildizzle420 pine pulp mostly for newspapers & toilet paper. We’ve made first obsolete, now for the second…
@@Lildizzle420 the books deserve capture on shelves, stacks etc. Relocating them hurts planet, burning them even burying them without a moisture roof is wrong.
Be proud of how many tons of carbon you prevent release of for as long as you can!
Where does all the long leaf and yellow pine come from for pressure treated lumber?
Maybe we (humans) are just using too much paper and packaging?
I damn sure wish I had the box concession for Amazon!
While increasing the growing cycle to create trees more useful for timber would be great it doesn't fit with the paper companies business model or current infrastructure of feller/bunches, trucks and plants.
They already got hit hard by the collapse of newsprint but they're making up for a lot of that in Kraft.
interesting. love this channel
I'm so glad that you mention the "carbon" costs as well as benefits of a new technology. My opinion is that we should be working toward using the carbon we've already emitted to create better materials (technology doesn't yet exist, though).
It takes decades for trees to viably grow.
We don't have decades.
Sung4JI3 Actually for fibre, it only takes years. For construction, I'll agree.
Yes we do.
@@rwargo1647 No we don't. Re using and adapting existing structures within cities would remove the need for the more carbon intensive 'demolish and rebuild' approach, as would new patterns of working. Many large scale office buildings in cities like London seemed to be being demolished on the basis of fashion and the idea of growth being expressed in the manner of 20th century Soviet smokestack Stakhanovite mentality to meet never ending 'production targets' to artificially flatter the national GDP. The idea of the old modernists that 'less is more' does not make sense to property developers and pension fund managers? The basic idea of 'economic growth' needs to be re interpreted to include a bio diverse habitable planet. The recent idea seen on Real Engineering (Can We block the Sun to Stop Climate Change) at
ua-cam.com/video/tJFtdvrTZs4/v-deo.html
of spraying a vapour that would imitate the behaviour of natural events like volcanic eruptions could reduce global temperature quickly, inexpensively and 'reasonably' controllably. The likelihood of successful climate change mitigation preventing us passing through the tipping points for the climate using the currently discussed techniques seems quite unrealistic within the period up to 2050. The effect of global molecular shielding causing a 0.5 degree temperature fall cannot possibly be worse than business as normal, and would buy badly needed time given the economic fossil fuel war currently taking place, in a manner that seems more 19th century imperialist than 21st century realist.
@@astoni314 you’re gonna be cold, hungry and really poor very soon. No geo-engineering will be needed to cool us off my friend.
Have you ever lived in a steel town, breathed the air and felt the heat? With engineered "wood", natural fibers are the sustainable option. The real problem of deforestation is too many people and too little regulation. I question if high rise construction is the best used of material for any structural material.
It is a better use of land than the extreme sprawl of suburbia.
A good percentage of US wood construction is yellow pine which is planted as a crop. Same for most of our wood paper pulp and engineered wood panels.
Nice video, was waiting to hear about bamboo and its superior qualities. Next time maybe.
As far as I know, there are ways to manage a forest in a biodiversity respectful manner. Nevertheless, the interest of this study (and thus of this video) is to show that it has to be put in place so the solution is not worst than the problem it tries to solve.
Thanks as always.
There's an alternative. Mimicking forests to grow more, better food while replacing bad ag practices would be all plusses.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an region that was open, cultivated fields and general bad land management.
Mark uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
I guess stop using wood pellets and burning biomass from forests would reduce the land use? Heat can be produced by heatpumps or similar.
Uk imports huge amounts to keep the old coal fired plants running. I assume/ hope this is a short term measure until full renewable power is on stream.
was hoping for crab batteries this week
🦀 c’est la vie
There was a recent notification form the forestry commission to the Royal Navy telling them their oak trees were ready from an order placed in the 1700's. Wood is not a quick thing. It is often 25 years to get a crop of even the fastest growing trees.
For house building, an oak tree is the most productive between 75-125 years of age. However, we’re not talking about hardwoods here; it’s softwood like pine that is used for gluelam, both because it’s faster growing, but also higher in strength to weight, even though it’s slightly weaker in ultimate tensile strength and particularly in shear and crush strength.
My opinion is that it would be a combination of mitigation processes as you have mentioned in prior videos .. One thing I hope that would help is that the worlds' population is about to hit it's peak. So it would be interesting to observe a few decades from now if humans are down to a more sustainable level, hopefully without destroying the planet that is our ecosystem..
Do you have drinkable Water where you live?
@@Diana1000Smiles Yes, it would be difficult to live without that 🤣
I like the Walter Jehne approach. Harvest rainwater, then encourage plant diversity with an emphasis on trees, and promote healthy soil. It solves a lot of concurrent problems, draws down more CO² than is released. Couple that with Mark Shepard's ag practices (which also helps small farmers).
Mimicking forests to grow more,, better food while replacing bad ag practices would be zero compromise, all plusses.
Mark Shepard of Restoration Agriculture fame mimics local forest guilds by growing food crops of trees, vines, shrubs and perennials. He converted a run-down dairy farm, in an area that was open cultivated fields and general bad land management. He uses a savannah/alley cropping for more efficient food production. This assists in pest management as well. He also uses livestock in a variation of mob grazing as part of the management system.
You end up with more calories and nutrition per acre than the previous use or that of the neighbors. The trees sequester carbon as well as provide a timber source towards the end of their life cycle.
That trees transpire a huge amount of moisture they would naturally contribute to the albedo effect, contrary to claims by some.
Rainwater harvesting can be quite simple and use onsite materials. Simple frequent structures that Brad Lancaster shows on his we.bsite --harvestingrainwater and expounds in his books are simple cheap and doable by a large portion of the population.
His site also shows case studies. He gives constructive criticism which is always good.
@@PBFoote-mo2zr
Restoration via better practices is better. Look up Mark Shepard, Brad Lancaster, Walter Jehne as a start.
@@PBFoote-mo2zr Totally agree!
I feel like the animal industry is really becoming hard to justify. There is so much better use for the land, energy, water, money and so on
Some land cannot be planted. Manure is a good fertiliser where we can grow stuff.
@@موسى_7 This is not the land i am talking about and this is not most of the land used for animal industry. The land that actually cant be used for anything else should still be used some how. I it could be natural reserves or used for a scaled down animal industry
I am a maple syrup producer in Ontario and I manage a natural forest for firewood, building materials, crop and wildlife trees. I pretty well only cut dead wood, the kind that burns by the millions of acres in the world every year, and I have built about a dozen buildings, provided 50 cords of wood/year from tops, slabs, rotten trees, etc and I would say that plantations are not at all necessary for lumber production. Cutting dead wood over very large swaths of land for building materials and fuel is what is needed. no clear cutting, just a lot of little lumber jacks like me, cutting dead wood. It helps to reduce danger from forest fires, reduce the impact on other areas that get logged by taking less from a larger area more often. But the real beauty of it is that it is far far more productive of a system over the years then any clear cutting can be and every tree if it is cut when it is freshly dead is always as large as it could possibly be. It takes time to get the system running well, there is a lot of little wood to deal with initially but after 15 years now, the trees that I harvest are much larger and much more sound than when I started and the productivity per acre has more than doubled. I scatter my ashes back in the woods and they seem to really like that too. It is just like manuring the fields that grow grass for an animal.
We are a “mono” species. We have been brainwashed by industry, agriculture, oil/gas barons, etc., to believe there is only one solution to a problem. Fossil fuels vs renewables is an obvious example. The path to saving our precious planet is actually a multi-path approach. Your videos are helping in efforts to promote positive change, especially in a change in individual personal mindset. The small percentage that make up the wealthy decision makers, including politicians, want us to believe they have the one answer. The current dichotomous political all-or-nothing political systems entrench the current system. So, keep making these videos and challenge us to spread them to friends and family. Thanks!
Could bamboo and hemp be considered in building construction? In particular, hempcrete?
possibly, if cattle ranchers are converted to hemp farms
There are businesses already making wood from hemp. This hemp wood could be engineered to have the strength of engineered timber. Hemp and bamboo grow many times faster than trees so they sequester CO2 faster as well.
Two things : What about Bamboo? And, I've asked many times what is the carbon footprint of a High Rise that has hundreds of people using a very small piece of the planet? Two hundred families in individual homes, with gardons and driveways, would seem like it would use a huge amount of carbon sequestrating land.. Have you ever found a comparison of the concrete carbon footprint of high rise over six stories vs massive urban sprawl???
look into the channel notjustbikes for more information on how to build a city correctly. What you describe is explained over at his channel. Sprawl does not just need lots of carbon to build. it also needs lots of carbon to live in.
@@Anonymoose66G *Niche
The primary thermal stabilisation is ground bonding of foundation of buildings allowing netzero impossible on highrises! Lighter beams do drastically increase usable squarefootage I assume however. Bamboo fibers in mass bamboo beams or bamboo tubes? I've grown bamboo it responds to extra water and high sun as you know it is fast, very fast, being hollow helps that of course.
Hemp has excellent building properties and needs less Water to grow. Also, downsizing is critical.
@@jims6498 Where on Earth is Water available, now?
My entire city used to be built almost entirely out of wood. It burned down in 1888 leaving 85% of citizens without a home, and since then we're not fans of tightly packed wooden buildings. Even if the walls can last for hours, their burning surface still allows the fire to spread.
Well put. The solution is to focus more on 1 year biogenic and/or unburned mineral materials, and save CLT for horizontal layers when necessary or only in +5 story buildings. I'd recommend you to make a feature on EcoCocon wall panels of straw, pre-fab insulated rammed earth elements and the progress in structural hemp "timber".
What if we rehabilitate/regreen the Sahara and use it as a source of timber?
Albedo is the concern there
David Shapiro Just how are you going to do that? Fusion for desalination?
What a great idea!
... why not just regreen the land that we do have to responsibly produce the materials we need, instead of destroying more natural ecosystems and using other countries territories?
why not focus on redesigning cities to be able to grow more vegetation, like in pyramid steppes? it would reduce heat in urban areas, but i do not know how much it would actually help offset the co2 produced.
why not also create more buildings to go underground to be able to save energy by having higher thermal insulation? this design may not be as useful in areas that are at high risk to floods.
why not use hemp blocks, bamboo, and other natural materials for smaller scale buildings that are only a few stories, and save the materials such as engineered timber or steel for larger projects?
i feel like rehabing the sahara is a terrible perspective. first, it is already being attempted, and, second, it would take a very long time, and, third, we could actually get much more done if we take alternative routes to urban design.
Seems like less meat production might be the go here. NOT touching our remaining old-growth forests and delicate, declining eco-systems. Thanks for all you do Dave.
Can Human carnivores survive without meat? Do you know how much Water is needed to grow alfalfa and corn to feed cattle? 🙂
@@Diana1000Smiles many do!
Their are plenty if old open cut coal mines that could be rehabilitated to grow forests of plantation timber. What would be good about this is that as rehabilitation happens the land could be sculptured to suit these forests. No need for flat ground, could have a pitch that would suit. Access tracks and roads are easy to care for if pre planned. Then use the large buildings that support the mining to make the engineered timber, then use the close rail networks to ship pre finished pods and panels to the cities.
Excellent show. No to tropical or sub tropical forest and therefore more biodiversity loss. Not crystal clear whether moving from using land for animal feed to timber production would be sufficient but that is a good start.
Perhaps another show could look at growing hemp for hemcrete and building construction. Hemp sequesters carbon and might be a better use of animal feed producing land.
What i don't understand is why we don't use the waste rock from rock mines or cut stone just for homes.
Also how we farm destroys more then homes do.
Also are food diversity is crap we grow 80% of are food in deserts but only less then 1% is deserts native crops like wtf we got thousands of edible desert crops and we don't grow em why.
not as convenient or profitable, and the cultures who could either don't need to or want to. we could eat bugs for protein, and reduce our meat, poultry, and fish intake too... but that is going to take both companies and culture to eventually turn that corner.
I watched PBS Terra recently about forests and CO2 sequestration. It takes about 20 to30 years to start the sequestration. Until then, the land and forest are net CO2 emitters. So planting a lot of "crop" trees would not significantly improve our CO2 balance.
That form of reforestation isn't particularly effective. Instead a regeneration of ecosystems and their conservation provides more benefits in the short and long term. Eg. Flood resistance, agroforestry and saving species from extinction. The co2 sequestration comes about when photosynthetic growth overtakes rate of organic decay
@@juliusmazzarella9711 There is a greater proportion of CO2 released from the soil than the trees capture for the first 20-30 years.
Harvesting hemp in hard to grow areas will take care of several issues. Hemp has much longer fibers than any tree (multiple feet to an inch). The longer the fibers, the stronger the wood. Hemp also takes a fraction of the time to grow.
Thanks for the very interesting and informative video. How about replanting areas that have been recently deforested. It seems to me the most advisable option without touching all the limits you just talked about
An aspect that hasn't been discussed is how rapidly softwoods degrade when exposed to UV light, temperature changes, humidity, lack of humidity, insects, etc. How long these constructions last and the maintenance they require must be taken into account, and I'm quite certain there are no realistic studies. Wood constructions would need to be drilled, bored, nailed, screwed, etc giving vectors of penetration to any protection applied to the wood externally. If you want to save on carbon build to last, not just construction but in the entire manufacturing industry. Planned obsolescense is a HUGE carbon contributor as well as an environmental disaster in it's own right.
I hear you and agree but given we have wood framed houses and buildings that are over a century old all over the world it's probably not that big of a deal
Timber frame homes have a lifespan of about 70 to 100 years in Australia. Wood cabin style homes are used all over the world and many very old buildings in raw wood over a hundred years old are common.
Germany is full of half-timbered houses from the 1700s and 1800s, some as old as the 1400s are still standing. Surely engineers know a lot about wood construction by now?
@@Borishal Old timber frame buildings are quite common all over, here in Spain you can usually tell which ones they are, because they're often butressed at the base and their real estate values are low.
@@mju135 I have a 300 year old stone house in the Rioja region of spain. It has plenty of wooden beams for the floors and the roof, oak beams not softwood as was discussed in this story. Many of those beams have survived the centuries, but then many have not. It's only a two story construction so not so worrisome. The maintenance is constant the exposed roof beams need treating every 3 years or so, and if I fall behind the sun and the ice make short work of it.
I can't imagine this in a large structure.
I suspect this would be a similar situation to that of carbon credits. If we built large buildings with wood *instead* of concrete and steel, we might save on the CO2 emissions - but what's more likely to happen is we'll consume wood *in addition* to concrete and steel. These projections are frequently based on the assumption of one technology replacing another - in reality, it's often the case these new technologies just end up adding to the problem. I really doubt we would reduce our consumption of steel and concrete - we would most likely just build even more stuff...
that's very true, electric vehicles are the same situation.
@@Lildizzle420 Another example is e-bikes. They claim to offset car journeys, but in reality they offset traditional cycling and walking
The "conundrum" about the reduction of livestock grazing land to accommodate the necessary tree plantation spaces can be solved to an extent by combining both. Agroforestry can have lots of trees and livestock grazing or foraging on the ground.
I think a highly incentivized focus on afforestation is one the most important things we need to begin.
Not building over 10-15 stories would go a long way. Regardless of steel vs engineered wood (or bamboo) this decreases resource requirements. Mix in robotaxies, transit systems and tunnels and we are fine. Decentralized and automated distribution of goods with less centralization in ultra high density cities will reduce overall needs. Low rise multi family structures are the most resource efficient way to provide homes.
Would it? Is there hard data to suggest the number of people sharing a high rise would be less than that of sprawling suburbia? Mass transit and transmission lines work best when more people and energy travel shorter distances on fewer routes..
@@spencerbardell2180 yes, the short answer is yes. people in the city drive 1 mile to the grocery store, people in suburbia drive 5 miles to the grocery store and people in rural areas drive 50 miles to the grocery store
Perhaps scrapping meat production and dedicating that land to timber would be agreeable to the largest segments. Meat is almost at a point where it can be synthesized to match the real thing for most pallets. The price of artificial meat is too high, but that should come down with scale. You'd get two for one; reduce ghgs from farm animals and reduce ghgs from making concrete and steel.
I was getting on board with meat being a wasteful product with high emissions until I watched a UA-cam video on the subject that brought up points that made me question if it’s really a area to be focused on.. seems that there are way worse things to go after…
Totally unnecessary, if you do your meat right it is carbon negative while creating one of the most nutrient dense foods available.
“The largest segments”? You need to get out of your bubble, that’s one of the least popular proposals.
With chem lab meat please . #AnimalRebellion AR are doing lots and appear clear winners IMO
If we scrap entire meat production we'd need only small portion of that land for forestry, even in 90% timber construction scenario. Meat farming takes absolutely massive amount of space.
I have an ambivalence to large scale forestry as I live in the thick of it and see a few downsides for communities and ecologies. What is important though is that as long as these wood engineered buildings are constructed well and last, then we have stored more carbon. The trees have very helpfully collected that for us, and we should be encouraging them. The more the better, as long as we aren't using the virgin tropics as a source.
I have nothing to say really, but I appreciate your content, and wish to help with the yt-algorithms.
Given the land and environmental sacrifices required for engineered timber this does not look viable. I would be interested is seeing some information on what it would take for timber requirements to be met with hemp and bamboo engineered timber. These carbon sequestering products grow much faster than traditional timber, so the needed acreage would be dramatically reduced because of increased yield per acre/hectare. Not claiming a silver bullet here, but I would appreciate more information to have a think.😀
To be honest, I prefer hydrogen steel of Sweden plus carbon capture concrete over plyscrapers. I think the concrete can be built faster, good for rising populations.
Reading the title I was intrigued to learn whether they now grow "timber" in gargantuan petri dishes. A genetically modified organism akin to a tree which would grow at an accelerated rate and consume massive amounts of CO2 to create a tough, wood-like substance as it fills up huge molds conveniently located next to the sawmill. But perhaps this channel will let us know about such amazing new developments next week instead!
We want to build our next home with CLT, similar to the development in Spokane spotlighted in a video by @kirstendirksen a few months ago. The cool thing is the lumber mill that was the provider of those CLTs is in our town!
Keep up the great work!
Amazing how decarbonization in steel and cement along with less animal protein and more plant based food freeing up vast amounts of crop land all fit together so well. Now the vacant crop land can grow trees and support more wildlife in the process. What great possibilities.
I vote to quit growing cows and start growing far more trees, everywhere we can.
Hahaha.
@@rwargo1647 We are at the point of producing plant meat you cannot tell the difference.
@@Cspacecat you’ve been drinking too much of that CAGW cool-aid EF. Perhaps another booster and your fake meat will guarantee a long and happy life for you and your offspring?
The assumption that human population will continue to increase for the foreseeable future is nonsense. That means capitalism, which depends upon unlimited growth, cannot continue. There are few choices for us here. But continued population growth is not one of those choices. (Note that war is an awful way to control populations, not just because it is immoral, but because it targets the healthiest and most fit individuals and kills them. This will reduce the genetic quality of the entire population over time.). We can encourage smaller and healthier families with increased social justice and universal, single-payer health care. Timber cities will not help much unless they are fewer and smaller cities.
the short version is that we have to target billionaires to support future population growth, once we have space mining then that's a different story but in the short term we have to stop the super connsumers like elon and bill gates
The Strength to weight ratio is a good measure when trying to keep a structure light. But for heavy duty structures, absolute strength is more important than strength to weight. Volume is also an important measure, high density steel enables you design a structure the can take large loads while looking slim.
Haven't watched this yet, so I don't know if this is covered, but one of the advantages of engineered timber to offset its higher cost is that if the layers are thin enough [
If people went vegan, we could use land used for animal feed production to plant trees for timber. 77 of agricultural land nowadays is used for either animal pasture or feed for animals. Simple math. Lets say a third of people join the vegan club, and we have ~10-13% of habituable land on earth to grow trees or just leave the land to nature and take some from natural forest!
Folks aren't going vegan for this shite. Get a clue mate.
or join the bug eating club. relatively high protein, and much less resource intensive for production.
Don't fly.
Don't eat red meat.
Drive an electric car if you can afford it.
Avoid plastic.
These are not the complete answer to our problems, but they will help our grandchildren lead a fulfilling life.
No they won't.
you know who changes the world? people that offer new solutions. it's a noble idea to boycott according to your values, but it would be much easier for the collective to have a reasonable alternative than just "avoid plastic".
The right red meat is carbon negative.
electric cars are unstainable in the long term you can't just remove a tailpipe and become carbon neutral
Good that we can already create wood in laboratory. Recently efforts to scale the method have been effective
I can create wood in my front yard. Scaling it up takes a while - maybe 30 or so years.
Trees are a crop, just like corn, soybeans and rice. You just have to wait 15 to 20 years to harvest. When we harvest our timber, we re-plant the following year and restart the cycle. We have a strong desire to replant so that the ground remains productive for both us **and** the environment. The problem comes when you cut timber and instead of replanting, replace it with "concrete".
The continued loss of biodiversity is huge threat for humans. It is up there with the Climate Crisis. Maybe time to tax animal agriculture?
Not just taxing. The animal agriculture industry is already obscenely rich.
Seize everything they have, stop the population growth of livestock, euthanize them even, and repurpose animal feed crop lands.
Yup, it's radical, but its what must be done if we need to reduce carbon gases and waste as much as humanly possible.
Maybe stop subsidies first. But good luck with that
There is no climate crisis- never has been. Loss of biodiversity because of PV panels, windmills and lithium mining is more destructive to Mother Earth than any amount of carbon or C02 put into the atmosphere.
@@sung4ji3 you’re really messed up. Do you live in your mother’s basement?
@@rwargo1647 There is a Climate Crisis in Texas. Where do you live?
Use a special grass species cold bamboo.
And look at what's been done in New Zealand with Glulam. Andy Buchanan at the University of Canterbury.
I love you podcasts and I'm privileged to be a subscriber.
Engineered timber also has excellent fatigue (durability) performance as cracks are stopped by the laminated structure. I have made an arm to hold my video camera for the computer using laminated wood and it works very well as it is also stiff enough to do the job! 😅
I think instead of wood from trees potentially use hemp wood which would increase carbon capture to grow and preserve existing forest and hemp wood is actually strong as well
I was wondering the same thing. Could hemp or bamboo be used in engineered wood such that the strength was maintained and land use improved?
We have been building timber framed houses here in Scotland for decades and they have all of the advantages you identified. As a start perhaps all housing including flats should be based upon timber prefabricated construction. Have you had a look at SIPS timber construction? I think it would be worth a look.
Neat idea, but yeah. Two steps forward and then two steps back... If only we could get our act together to have it all work for the best solution.
Some crops grow better with partial shade. Farmers and scientists are experimenting with trees planted on the same field as crops. This means dual use of the space with certain reduction of yield. Grain, for example, grows slower but is protected against flattening during a storm.
Growing hybrid poplar on class 3 and 4 land beats any crop for profitability. As a retired Ag banker, I expect farm groups will get into fibre production on a portion of their land, and build factories to turn out construction materials. They did this with straw before.
Grow more hemp good for insulation and mixed with lime good replacement for concrete construction. Also, Agroforestry grow trees and live livestock together
Um, the meat part is no longer viable. We have overfished our Oceans, too.
@@Diana1000Smiles there world still needs meat maybe not as much we eat to day and animals on the land are important for good soil. We could rewind some of the land and eat the meat from that land and maybe some of the trees.
Milwaukee's got competition! More people have been wandering down the old plank road 🌲🌲🌲🌱.🌞🧀
Smaller timber can be made as engineered wood as well, relying primarily on faster growing wood, such as bamboo and using hemp as well. Even adding a small amount of carbon fiber can make them much stronger and allow even larger scales of timber. As carbon nanotubes become available, that is another resource that can be added to engineered timber as a strengthening element.
Don't know if you've ever heard of this place called Canada. Quite a bit of trees there, fairly substantial forestry industry. Doesn't need to come from the tropics.