Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Jimmy Rutland

It’s a lot easier for people to imagine dealing with emissions from motor vehicles than other sources… But structures themselves drive a significant amount of the energy use that results in carbon dioxide emissions. Thursday, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis took up the issue. “More resilient and efficient buildings not only pollute less — they also cost less to operate and to insure,” committee Chairwoman Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said. …U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-1, opened his questioning of the invited panel by asking Jimmy Rutland — president of Lowder New Homes in Alabama and representing the National Association of Home Builders — about the climate and economic impacts of timber. …“Timber draws carbon out of the atmosphere — it’s very important. …it’s a big part of our economy. We know that throughout the United States, the annual amount of carbon that’s stored by forest products is over 70 million tons.”

ORONO, Maine – Federal and state officials, business executives, and officials from the University of Maine gathered last week to witness the university’s latest achievement: The world’s largest 3D-printed object from the world’s largest 3D printer. A 25-foot, 5,000 pound boat made from CNF, a wood-based plastic. “Maine is the most forested state in the nation, and now we have a 3D printer big enough to make use of this bountiful resource,” said Sen. Angus King. “Today marks the latest innovative investment in Maine’s forest economy, which will serve to increase sustainability, advance the future of biobased manufacturing and diversify our forest products industry.” …Printing with 50 percent wood promises to open new markets for the pulp, paper and forest products industries, says UMaine. As a forest product, CNF could rival steel properties, and its successful incorporation into plastics shows great promise for a renewable feedstock suitable for additive manufacturing, says UMaine. 

Apex Clean Energy, a developer and operator of wind energy and solar power facilities across North America, will be the anchor tenant of a new eight-story office building in downtown Charlottesville, Va. The property will feature sustainable features including a mass timber structure and integrated renewable energy. When it is completed in mid-2021, it will be Virginia’s tallest timber building. The facility will also be the headquarters of Riverbend Development, Hourigan Development and William McDonough + Partners, the architecture firm that designed the project. …The sustainably harvested mass timber structure will realize a total potential carbon benefit of approximately 3,000 metric tons compared to a traditional concrete and steel structure.

Tackling the biggest problems of the world today and in the future could benefit from technologies of the past. “This is back to the future,” is how Joe Short, vice president of Northern Forest Center, put it at the start of a conference Friday discussing mass timber, which uses wood to replace steel and concrete in buildings as tall as a dozen stories. …Mass timber is of great interest to the logging industry because it uses a large variety of trees… creating a market that would benefit loggers and forest owners in New Hampshire. …Friday’s two-hour conference at the UNH law school in Concord was held by the Northern Forest Center, UNH Cooperative Extension and the New Hampshire Division of Forests & Lands. …So far, however, New Hampshire has seen no activity.

…on a long-haul economy flight, and you might be offered a drink, in a plastic cup, which you’ll stir with a plastic stick….You might enjoy a meal which you’ll eat with plastic cutlery, also wrapped in plastic. The list goes on and on. Put together, that contributes to the 5.7 million tonnes of cabin waste from passenger flights each year. A new exhibition at London’s Design Museum aims to rethink the waste we generate when we travel. Design firm PriestmanGoode has worked up an environmentally-friendly version of the traditional economy meal tray. The base is made out of coffee grains, it uses a waffle cone for the desert dish, and algae skins contain milk and vinaigrette. The salad pot is made from a pressed banana leaf and the “spork” (a spoon and fork combined) is made from coconut wood, a cheap and easily-available material.

We all know the old folktale about the three little pigs – two built their houses out of quick and cheap materials like sticks and straw so that they could spend more time goofing off. …why are municipal leaders in the Triangle working with developers to cover our cities with dangerous, hastily constructed condos and apartment homes made out of sticks? We recently reported that yet another mixed-use wood-frame apartment complex is slated to go up next to Durham Central Park soon, but it is past time for leaders to begin limiting the hazardous trend of wood constructed complexes taking over the city. …Here’s the problem: the projects…are all made out of cheap wood – “stick” construction is the industry’s term. [it] saves wealthy developers more money but renders buildings extremely vulnerable to fire (particularly during construction). …Other communities have pushed back against this trend. …In the end, doing nothing is an unaffordable risk.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and the U.S. Forest Service will host the Timber! Design Excellence in Timber and Wood Symposium on Oct. 4-6 on the University of Arkansas campus. This three-day event brings together an international cohort of architects and engineers whose work specifically in wood demonstrates excellence in design and innovation. While the sustainable argument for the use of mass timber is clear and the economics of its production, distribution and construction applications are improving, demonstration of mass timber as a material capable of true design excellence must now have the foreground. “Since my arrival in 2014, I’ve asked questions of imperative value for the Fay Jones School,” said Dean Peter MacKeith. “Chief among them has been, ‘What does it mean to be a school of architecture and design in a state 60 percent covered in forest?’” 

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded US$ 1.5 million to an Ohio University professor to develop engineered composite decking boards from coal. Industry partners are providing an additional US$ 500,000 in funding. Jason Trembly, Russ Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment (ISEE)… aims to utilise coal in the manufacture of construction composite building materials in collaboration… …Manufacturing the coal-based composites requires less energy – and results in lower manufacturing costs and emissions – than manufacturing commercial wood plastic composites. Also more affordable to consumers, the materials provide a new, sustainable way of using coal. …Consol’s VP Dan Connell believes the initiative has the potential to open up an alternative, sustainable market for US coal. …Studies show the global plastic composite market… is expected to reach US$ 8.76 billion by 2023.