41–50 of 108 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey very cool. Not exactly related, but if you are interested, I have an adventure journalling side-project I am working on. I would love to have more techie travel/adventure loving folks on board... https://outsideways.com/
looks cool, signing up now :)
Bamboo isn't going to replace lumber for most permanent uses, but it sure is handy when you need to put something together in a pinch. I was once trekking in northern Thailand with some Akha hill tribe guides. When it was time for dinner, they cut down a large bamboo and within minutes fashioned essentially a complete dinner service out of it: * A framework for their overnight hut/lean-to * A pot for boiling rice * A…
And it's helpful to be reminded that, as techies - our skills just aren't that special or useful.
The list of uses is missing the best one: clothing! Bamboo fabric is very soft and comfortable, if you haven't tried it yet you should! Downside: it doesn't last as long as cotton, and takes a bit longer to dry after washing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iirc, there’s a bamboo tree that grows very fast and has been considered for carbon sequestration. But the problem is, as with all trees, the carbon isn’t locked away from the atmosphere. It also takes up valuable farm land as they need something more like marshland than drier, more common land.
You can make charcoal from it which generates some heat from burning but doesn’t release near as much of the carbon. Then you can treat the charcoal to make terra preta, which is a soil additive that lasts centuries and encourages soil formation and carbon retention itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have engineered bamboo "wood" flooring that I like a lot and after a few years haven't noticed any cracking or warping; perhaps it went through more extensive treatment processes?
"engineered" is the key word here. I too have bamboo flooring. When cutting pieces to fit I noticed a distinct epoxy/chemical smell foreign to what I'd encountered when cutting standard red oak flooring.
It does look good and flexes if you don't glue it down and run an underlay.
This article makes no mention of biomass per acre when farmed. As a C4 photosynthesis plant, bamboo presumably grows more biomass per year than other trees. If true, that would seem significant enough to outweigh many of the disadvantages.
The impact of shipping bamboo from where it grows to where the lumber is needed might also need be considered for completeness. Now, I don't know how you define biomass but would be inetersting to see numbers. Just from the looks: ok those big bamboo species grow way closer together than oak for instance, but on the other hand an oak tree grows much thicker and the wood per cubic is almost certainly going to be heavi…
There's a YouTube channel (0) that uploads videos from a girl in China building things out of bamboo, watching her work is entrancing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LTejJnrzGPM [0] I think the channel is fan made and she actually posts them to a Chinese social media site.
Relatives that lived in Japan brought back bamboo stuff to the US, and it all cracked within a year or so. The reason was that bamboo does well in wet climates where the moisture in the air keeps in flexible. (or something like that) But in the US, it's much drier (most places) than in Japan. This fits with my experience of bamboo furniture over the years as well. It becomes brittle and fragile the older it gets. But…
This article makes no mention of biomass per acre when farmed. As a C4 photosynthesis plant, bamboo presumably grows more biomass per year than other trees. If true, that would seem significant enough to outweigh many of the disadvantages.
Iirc, there’s a bamboo tree that grows very fast and has been considered for carbon sequestration. But the problem is, as with all trees, the carbon isn’t locked away from the atmosphere. It also takes up valuable farm land as they need something more like marshland than drier, more common land.
But while they grow quickly, being mostly hollow they are a fraction of the weight of a similar length tree branch.
You can pick one up easily.
Leaves however are a different story - they drop an enormous amount of leaves!
The leaves don't compost easily like grass and are terrible to burn. They do make a good mulch similar to sugar cane otherwise you're filling a bin every week with leaves!
If it doesn't rain for a few months the leaves all yellow and they start to die off like grass, but they don't need that much water.