There really needs to be research into breeding or creating trees that grow straight and to tens of meters in the span of a year or two provided a super diet that isn’t naturally found in the ground.
Super Wood (2018)
31–40 of 48 posts
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#32I am absolutely ectatic about getting transparent wood windows fitted in my wooden house! That would be so amazing! ... but then I remember how they don't build wooden houses in Palestine :-(
Why don't they? What do they use instead?
They barely build them here in the UK. The US has an abundance of wood, so you can build wood framed wood clad houses cheaply.
Palestine is not only without forests but semi-embargoed; it looks from the news footage that cement block or hollow brick are common.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#33It's cool but is is from 2018; why now?
Hacker News is somewhat of a misnomer: submissions don't have to be new. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There is a convention of putting the year of origin in the title, though, which this submitter didn't do. Moderators will occasionally add it to a title, if they see it.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#34One of the advantages I didn't see compared was 'machinability' I wonder if you're able to CNC the densified wood in the same way you would as the metals mentioned in the article without compromising it's strength.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#35This could be interesting for wooden boats as well.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#36(2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965564
Year added above. Thanks!
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#37As the article mentions, densified wood already exists as a product [1]. But it's basically never used for building materials. As far as I can tell it's main use-case is for electrical transformer support pads and anchorage, as you need a strong, non-conductive material for that. So right now it's a fairly niche product. I'm not an expert, but as far as I know existing densified wood is basically stronger by virtue o…
They claim its weight-to-strength ratio is six times greater than steel.
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-densified-wood-...
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#38As the article mentions, densified wood already exists as a product [1]. But it's basically never used for building materials. As far as I can tell it's main use-case is for electrical transformer support pads and anchorage, as you need a strong, non-conductive material for that. So right now it's a fairly niche product. I'm not an expert, but as far as I know existing densified wood is basically stronger by virtue o…
Offhand can you think of any improvement here over existing lumber products like LVLs?
Around here (San Francisco) the primary use of this kind of wood is for decks. It stands up very well in the weather and it's lovely. Popular is used a lot here for this process. The color changes to a rich, dark color.
I've been wanting to get some to work with but it's special order. Apparently this process is reasonably available now as one of the mills in Marin produces it. Unfortunately decking, eg. boards 1" think or less, seem to be the only kinds available. At least at the retail level.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#39I am absolutely ectatic about getting transparent wood windows fitted in my wooden house! That would be so amazing! ... but then I remember how they don't build wooden houses in Palestine :-(
The whole "transparent wood" thing is such a scam. It's PLASTIC. A process removes nearly all of the wood from the material, then replaces it with transparent plastic, and somehow it's still marketed as "wood".
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#40This is one of my favorite paths forward for long term CO2 reduction.
About 360 million years ago, there was something called the Carboniferous Period[1]. This was the 60 million year period after wood had evolved, but before anything had figured out how to eat it. Trees just piled up and piled up over the millennia sucking out a ton of carbon from the air and leaving an insanely high oxygen ratio, which lead to the evolution of large, high energy creatures with crazy high metabolisms that wouldn't be sustainable with modern oxygen ratios.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
I love the idea of kicking off a second carboniferous period as we finally realize how to fully utilize the power of wood, and start treating it more like programmable diamond, sucking in the carbon from the air around it, and growing into incredibly strong shapes for any purpose.