Stronger than steel? At what thickness?
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Super Wood (2018)
41–48 of 48 posts
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#42Great that it can stop a bullet. Can you drive a nail into it? Or operate on it with off the shelf drills and saws?
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#43This 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…
Mine too. Interestingly, there's some suggestion that lack of lignin-degrading processes in nature at the time is more of a myth than anything. Instead, a unique combination of climate and tectonic activity drove the high rate of coal production at that time: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4780611/
IMO if we ever want to start taking sequestration via this method seriously it's trivial to start now - Grow fast trees(e.g. Maple, Pine). Log trees. Bury trees deep underground. Repeat. All the tech exists, is ubiquitous, and trivially easy to de-carbonize in itself. The major sticking point, I'd argue the solitary issue, is there's no money to be made in it.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#44This 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…
> and growing into incredibly strong shapes for any purpose.
This makes me think of Lothlórien[0], the living bridges[1], or grown furniture[3].
[0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/00/fa/3b00fa449cf206aebf6a...
[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/adventure/2019/11/livin...
[2] https://www.creativespotting.com/2016/03/man-grows-natural-c...
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#45As 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…
I thought the main application for this new material was just a cheaper hardwood. Take pine, boil it, compress it, heat it, and you have cheap ironwood. Should make for longer lasting construction materials, right?
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Only the West Bank and Gaza are embargoed; but I live in Haifa which is under Israeli control.
In the far past, stone was common; and indeed, today it's cement and hollow bricks. Both in the 1948-occupied parts (= Israel) and the 1967-occupied parts.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don't they? What do they use instead?
A lot of the middle east use some sort of stone or mud/dirt. Partly because lumber is not as plentiful and earthquakes are not much of a thing. Plus concrete / stone has better sound privacy characteristics and doesn't catch on fire.
Actually, earthquakes _are_ a thing in eastern Palestine - it's right next to this major fault line:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian-African_Rift_Valley
we have very-minor earthquakes occasionally, and I think a major earthquake once a century or so.
Re: Super Wood (2018)
#48I 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".
The story does not suggest the wood is removed and replaced, but rather transformed. Can you please elaborate?
Specifically, will this material feel like plastic rather than wood? Behave like plastic rather than wood?