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How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

bambooimport.com

221–226 of 226 posts

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#221
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is mostly cellulose (which is all carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen). There's some calcium and potassium, but not that much. You are correct that it's not entirely renewable.

Not sure what you mean by renewable? Would carbon, hydrogen and oxygen be more renewable than calcium and potassium? They are all just elements we have a lot of on earth. And those elements don't get used up. Toss your wood on a compost pile, and you can re-use them?

Minerals follow cycles. If biological activity is utilising and removing specific minerals faster than they're returned to their respective sources (atmosphere, soil, or water, generally), then those minerals are depleted.

Leibig's Law of the Minimum states that it is the specific nutrient which is limiting of growth or metabolism which is most crucial. This is a point missed in numerous dicussions of growth or limits. Typically this is a fairly major nutrient such as nitrogen (fixed from the atmosphere, but at high metabolic cost, largely through microbes which are sybmiotes with legumes). Phosphorus and potash are the other most heavily utilised, and most frequently limiting nutrients. In parts of Australia, a land that is remarkably inactive, tectonically, critical micronutrients arrive as wind-blown dust, much from India or volcanic eruptions in Indonesia. A few grams per hectare can make a significant difference in crop yields.

Soil alkalinity is another major factor, as is drainage charcteristics, with sandy, clay, or high-carbon soils all being favoured or unsuited to specific plants. Then of course, climate, temperature, and precipitation.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#222
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you mean by renewable? Would carbon, hydrogen and oxygen be more renewable than calcium and potassium? They are all just elements we have a lot of on earth. And those elements don't get used up. Toss your wood on a compost pile, and you can re-use them?

Minerals follow cycles. If biological activity is utilising and removing specific minerals faster than they're returned to their respective sources (atmosphere, soil, or water, generally), then those minerals are depleted. Leibig's Law of the Minimum states that it is the specific nutrient which is limiting of growth or metabolism which is most crucial. This is a point missed in numerous dicussions of growth or limit…

Yes, minerals follow cycles. But so does hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon and oxygen. It's just that some of those are delivered via air, and some via liquids and some via the soil.

But not fundamentally different.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#223
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minerals follow cycles. If biological activity is utilising and removing specific minerals faster than they're returned to their respective sources (atmosphere, soil, or water, generally), then those minerals are depleted. Leibig's Law of the Minimum states that it is the specific nutrient which is limiting of growth or metabolism which is most crucial. This is a point missed in numerous dicussions of growth or limit…

Yes, minerals follow cycles. But so does hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon and oxygen. It's just that some of those are delivered via air, and some via liquids and some via the soil. But not fundamentally different.

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Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#224
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minerals follow cycles. If biological activity is utilising and removing specific minerals faster than they're returned to their respective sources (atmosphere, soil, or water, generally), then those minerals are depleted. Leibig's Law of the Minimum states that it is the specific nutrient which is limiting of growth or metabolism which is most crucial. This is a point missed in numerous dicussions of growth or limit…

Yes, minerals follow cycles. But so does hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon and oxygen. It's just that some of those are delivered via air, and some via liquids and some via the soil. But not fundamentally different.

Nitrogen is an example of a nutrient which is present in air, but which is available through soil for the majority of all plants.

Again: nitrogen fixation is exceedingly energy intensive, and few organisms can achieve this on their own.

Where nitrogen is removed from soil faster than it is replenished, it becomes a critical, growth-determining, nutrient.

Carbon is available in the air, but also comprises a major constituent of topsoils. Though soil carbon itself isn't a plant nutrient, it provides a vital role in supporting plant life in its role in supporting symbiotic life, in managing alkalinity, and in moderating water and nutrient flows.

In many agricultural areas, soil carbon is being depleted at roughly 10x the rate at which it is formed, leading some to term such farming as "topsoil mining". Accumulations over a period of 10,000 years (since the previous ice age) are being degraded over a period of centuries.

Presence in the atmosphere != availability from the atmosphere.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#225
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pressure treated wood is highly toxic...

Yes, it’s a construction material. I wouldn’t recommend eating it. Same advice goes for reinforced concrete slabs and steel girders.

It’s treated with a copper sort of poison usually. We handled it without gloves once after it had gotten wet and all got really sick.

Re: How is bamboo lumber made? (2016)

#226
post #172

Beautiful bamboo home featured on TED and AppleTV, for reference: https://ibuku.com/ Note, little to no bamboo lumber used. I think these kinds of homes are an excellent idea for the billion or two people living in suitable climate for it. And maybe a bamboo lumber building can survive in harsher places, too. We will need to experiment to find out.

"I think these kinds of homes are an excellent idea for the billion or two people living in suitable climate for it." Yes, but people and bamboo have coexisted in these places for a long time, and majority of buildings aren't made of bamboo. So obviously other materials are cheaper/easier to work with otherwise I suspect they would have selected it as building material of choice.

Agree, there’s plenty to factor into the “build a home” equation. The billion or two living in these climates also have to deal with serious bug-borne diseases. How do we get to cheap, sustainable building materials that also consider bugs or other important local requirements.
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