Today, Moses Structural Engineers announces the return of TimberFever 2022, 8th annual design-build competition, in person after two years of virtual competitions due to COVID-19. Starting Thursday, September 15th, 2022, the four-day competition will take place at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). With limited time and resources, architecture and engineering students from across North America will compete in building life-size structures based on a given theme that will address a current issue. “Student competitions including TimberFever offer great opportunities for innovation and experiential learning.” says Dr. Medhat Shehata, professor of Civil Engineering and associate dean at TMU. “Participants also learn from the expertise of the industry partners and guest speakers.” …TimberFever offers an opportunity for future architects, engineers and professional trades to get to work together and networking opportunities prior to graduation.
As Mass Timber Demonstration Program (MTDP) projects prepare to break ground, businesses, local governments and First Nations can apply to the program’s third intake and choose to build with mass timber in B.C. communities. The Government of B.C. is investing $2 million into the third intake of the MTDP, building on $5.4 million already invested to support 12 mass timber building projects and four research projects from the first two intakes. “Mass timber helps reduce our carbon footprint, adds value to our forestry sector and provides new opportunities for jobs, growth and innovation in every corner of the province,” said Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation. “As we gather at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, we are excited about the opportunity for more communities to look to mass timber for their building needs as we continue growing an inclusive, sustainable, clean economy that works for all British Columbians.”
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It costs Alaskans $20 million a year to import lumber, mostly from Canada, that has the quality inspection stamps required by lending institutions who finance most home and building construction. Alaska has a lot small local sawmills that need customers. Ironically, the lack of a state lumber inspection and certification program forces Alaska builders to import lumber from places out-of-state where the certifications can be done, and that adds to costs. The Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection wants to change that. The agency is developing a new program to increase the use of Alaskan wood by allowing local sawmill operators to self-certify their lumber, the division said Sept 16. Local Use Lumber is a concept that promotes locally produced dimensional lumber to be used in some residential construction, usually single and double family houses. 
As new timber technologies emerge for the construction industry, Dirigo Center Developers in Westbrook is preparing to build a cross-laminated timber tower and retail demonstration that will expand markets for Maine’s new forest products. The company was recently awarded $250,000 for the project, from the U.S. Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Grant program. Dirigo Center Developers was one of four Maine businesses to be awarded nearly $2.5 million from U.S. Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Grant program and Community Wood Grant program. The goal of the federal funding is to strengthen Maine’s forest products sector and expand markets for the industry. …The money will provide support to the four companies, which are finding new customers for their wood products, which include cross-laminated timber, new pine resources and wood biomass fuels. 
The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research published a study in the journal Nature Communications that claims building future cities from engineered wood products could prevent 106 billion tons of carbon dioxide from entering the Earth’s atmosphere by 2100. As the world’s population increases, more people will gravitate toward cities. Low rise wooden buildings of between 4 and 12 stories could provide shelter for all those people and locations for community businesses without the carbon emissions associated with making buildings out of concrete and steel. …Abhijeet Mishra, the paper’s lead author said, “More than half the world’s population currently lives in cities. This means more homes will be built with steel and concrete, most of which have a serious carbon footprint. But we have an alternative. We can house the new urban population in mid-rise buildings — that is four to 12 stories — made out of wood.”
There’s a ubiquitous crop that slurps up unsustainable quantities of water, gets doused in chemicals and fertilizers to maintain its growth—and yet doesn’t provide us with any food. This crop is cotton, and it covers 34.5 million hectares of arable farmland around the world. Now, a team of Swedish researchers propose that if we replace a share of this crop with fibers made from the wood of fast-growing poplar trees, we could free up millions of hectares of cotton land for growing food instead. They also explore how a new processing method could make use of the whole tree, extracting bio-oils for fuel from the remaining wood. To boot, poplar forests could help to draw down carbon as they grow, the researchers report in the journal Joule. …Fast-growing poplar trees are a good source of cellulose—and they don’t need cotton’s artificial inputs.