They can capture more carbon than they emit. So why aren't wooden buildings mainstream?:
Four storeys high and made almost entirely of wood, the ZEB Lab building in Trondheim, Norway, had, even before it existed, sucked as much carbon from the atmosphere as it would probably produce in construction. Now, thanks to its arboreal origins, as well as to the sleek expanse of solar panels on its roof and to other energy efficiency measures, it is a carbon-negative building. In other words, from birth to demise, it will have drawn down more carbon than it emitted.
There are various ways to store excess carbon dioxide. "One way is to have it hidden in buildings," says Tero Hasu, a project manager at Kouvola Innovation, a municipally owned development company of the City of Kouvola in Finland. The ZEB (zero emission building) Lab achieves this by using wood for almost everything—from beams to pillars and staircases. Concrete is to be found only in the foundations and the ground floor.
[...] "Every building that goes over four storeys, or even lower, is a research or demonstration project," observed Dr. Niels Morsing, director of wood and biomaterials at the Danish Technological Institute in Copenhagen. "There's a lot of effort going into proving performance. It's one of the barriers that we don't have "pre-accepted" solutions."
[...] As trees grow, they sequester carbon—about one tonne of CO2 for every cubic metre of wood. While carbon is emitted in processing the wood, the production of concrete is notoriously carbon-intensive. Just the chemical reaction that produces a tonne of cement releases about half a tonne of CO2. Provided the trees come from sustainable forests—so they are replaced when chopped down—and as long as the wood is recycled at the end of a building's life, it could be a powerful solution.
[...] As well as constructing the ZEB Lab building, Hasu's project, NERO, has focused on improving the design and manufacturing processes of nearly zero energy buildings in general, such as how to make them sufficiently energy-efficient to withstand bitter northern winters, and do well despite seasonal fluctuations in temperature, light and moisture.
"I love the (ZEB building)," said Hasu, 'because they have tried to do it all." He says it's a good example of how much can be done with pre-planning and the materials we have today.
The building was built for a university and energy research company SINTEF, so he says they were instinctively open-minded when it came to trying new approaches to construction.
But Hasu, who has spent 30 years working on industrialised construction and sites, believes once people experience living or working inside a mainly wooden building rather than a concrete one, they will be converted. "It's much more quiet ... and the wooden surface evens out the moisture inside—it is breathing. There's not so much echo inside. It's a very different feeling."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:37PM (6 children)
Why are they not more mainstream? That is for taller buildings I guess cause it seems very mainstream here for normal one or two floor houses. But perhaps it's a matter of suitable wood being available. Large sections of the world doesn't have good suitable wood for house construction perhaps. Here (nordic eu) it's in ample supply and it's only when you go above the second floor it becomes more common with concrete, or prefab concrete blocks.
During the last five-ten years or so tho there have been a real uptick in the amount of larger wooden structures, up to that three-four levels height.
That said while I do like wooden houses they also have a bit of a maintenance issue. Also they become fairly hot during summers. While a stone house can remain more cold during the summer and insulated during the winter -- or at least that is what it feels like.
Also it's not that concrete houses doesn't capture and store carbon either. I seem to recall that it does and that it's also a trendy thing in the building business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:32PM (3 children)
Where does this wood come from? It comes from trees. Trees that can also be more carbon negative. "Well, we can just plant more trees". But when you remove the wood from the earth to build these houses you also remove the limited nutrients that make up this type of wood from the soil as well.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:20PM (2 children)
Non-carbon nutrients are exceedingly easy to replace and don't make up much of a tree. The vast majority of a tree's mass is made up of carbon captured from the air.
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(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:07PM (1 child)
Finally took the plunge and bought a middle school science curriculum! I'm proud of you my boy, self improvement is a worthy goal.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:50PM
It must suck pretty hard being wrong all the time and having nothing to fall back on in an argument except lame trolls. You have my pity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:14PM
>it's not that concrete houses doesn't capture and store carbon either.
It really is - concrete does absorb CO2 over the first year or two as it cures - but not nearly as much as is produced making the concrete in the first place. Concrete is a huge net source of CO2.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 26 2021, @09:52PM
In the case of concrete, the CO2 it absorbs only partially offsets the CO2 emitted when limestone (calcium carbonate) is made into cement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:43PM (12 children)
The linked article seems to have missed the humidity issue. Wood changes shape depending on a mix of local and historical humidity and unlike steel or other bulk material its anisotropic varying along wood grain AND it varies by species if not by tree and piece of wood itself. Also cutting geometry of the original log has a pretty big influence on warping.
I can't build "fine woodworking" projects unless the wood sits in my workshop for awhile. Like at LEAST a couple weeks per inch thick.
The dimensional changes are large enough that a couple of stories house will be fine but I would imagine a 100 story building would be structurally indeterminant. Like the randomness multiplies with complexity and length such that random changes of 1% length in the roof truss components might cause random changes of stress in the roof truss of 5%. But in a vastly larger and more complex skyscraper those random dimensional changes of similar size might result in random and unpredictable stress changes of plus or minus "too much for professional engineering". There are strategies that require extreme engineering effort but why bother?
To some extent it doesn't matter. Extensive remote work and crime pressures and quality of life problems make urban skyscrapers less appealing, and supposedly the city of Chicago is the leader in residential skyscrapers with a mere 25% of the population in them. What I'm getting at is its ecologically and engineering simpler to cut down on carbon by banning skyscrapers and moving urbanites into the burbs or whatever. High density living is the past and it would be more productive to put effort into better insulated suburban and rural windows or more inches of ceiling insulation or whatever.
(Score: 3, Informative) by engblom on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:27PM (4 children)
I do not see any such problem as you see with humidity. The more wood you have the more the randomness evens itself out. It is not like all of the much expanding wood will end up on one side and all the not much expanding wood on the other side. So more wood will make things more even and the small differences can be handled by how wood is also flexible. Honestly, I trust wood more than concrete and brick. I think everyone has seen cracks in brick and concrete constructions. And if you build with steel, remember that if the sun shines on an object built with steel it might also expand unevenly.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:00PM
And yet, you can go to home depot and see one pallet of 2x6 soaking dripping wet next to a pallet of bone dry 2x6.
Real lumber yards not so bad. But I would not be surprised to see different wood moisture content in the west side wall as opposed to east side wall in a stick built house onsite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:33PM (2 children)
You obviously have no knowledge of wood with such a handwavy, theoretical justification.
(Score: 2) by engblom on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:44PM (1 child)
I probably have more real life knowledge than what you have. I have been building my own house out of wood and I have been working for a construction firm building wooden houses. In my area almost all houses are built out of wood. Yet I have to see any house where wood expanding because of humidity would cause a problem. Those that have those problem do not know how to use wood as a construction material.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 26 2021, @10:05PM
It's a matter of scale. At the scale of a 2 story home, the expansion isn't a problem. It can even be beneficial as it can tighten up the whole structure. For a high rise, that tiny bit of expansion in the vertical direction adds up. Not to mention the increased weight of the absorbed water.
A steel skeleton with a wood shell would greatly reduce the problem.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:43PM (5 children)
> varying along wood grain AND it varies by species
They mention in the article using plywood, which at least fixes the anisotropy issue.
They don't mention financial cost anywhere however, which I guess is the big difference.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:03PM (4 children)
I wonder about labor costs of one ironworker installed steel beam vs many wood beams for the same span.
Also once you go "glued together fibers" may as well go all the way and make it out of fiberglass like a hot tub but house shaped. Which is not so crazy of an idea? There are RVs made like that (some, not all)
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:42PM (3 children)
I also wondered about using some sort of reconstituted fibre like MDF. I guess it isn't as strong as plywood but may hold some environmental benefit (more of the wood can be used I guess). DIY is not my strength however!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @05:52PM (1 child)
MDF is just cardboard. Literally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:09PM
There's different grades. The cheap shit is cardboard, right up to the stuff with a hydrophobic epoxy binder that you can make boats out of.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by slinches on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:03PM
The supply of these sorts of products is dependent on waste streams of other products/processes. They are only better environmentally if the demand for them doesn't outpace the supply from those waste sources. When that happens stock that would have been otherwise used in a less processed state gets diverted into the production of these secondary products, which tends to increase the price. Conveniently, the less processed state tends to be stronger and more durable. So I think the best way to ensure a good balance is to just use the least expensive material that's suited to the use. Trying to push use of one of these products because it's more environmentally friendly would likely end up with unintended consequences that compromise both the environmental benefits and the integrity of the goods the materials are used in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @12:04PM
I suspect that clearing land for housing, installing roads or rail for transit, installing utilities, heating and cooling individual structures and small multi-family homes and townhouses, having a significant minority of the urban people not have remote work so there are lots of people driving or taking transit every day, and the constant distribution of food to grocery stores and constant package shipping all add up. My guess is that 100,000 people living in two square miles of some city have a much lower total environmental cost than 100,000 people spread across ten or twenty square miles of the suburbs.
Now if you take the 100,000 city dwellers and convert them to an Amish way of life in the countryside, it would be different. But I'm not volunteering for that, are you? :)
(Score: 5, Informative) by SvenErik on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:13PM (3 children)
About 2 years ago, a new 18-storey and 85.4 meter tall (280.2 feet) hotel [wikipedia.org] called Mjøstårnet was opened here in Norway that was built using glued laminated timber, also abbreviated glulam [wikipedia.org].
A Norwegian-language article in a Norwegian technical magazine about it and the opening with a lot more pictures than in the Wikipedia page can be found here [www.tu.no].
"Every demand is a prison, and wisdom is only free when it asks nothing." Sir Bertrand Russell
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:26PM (1 child)
Came here to say something similar. Glulam is just one of many fairly new "engineered wood" products. Instead of large beams from old growth trees, there are lots of other ways to assemble structural members from smaller pieces of wood & wood veneer. Also lots of ways to preserve wood, or, for some applications use self-preserving woods like redwood and cedar.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:44PM
At that point how much better is using the wood + preservatives, etc. Than it is to just use Steel for the supports, and whatever "green friendly" construction material to finish it off?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @05:28PM
The Case for Wooden Skyscrapers [soylentnews.org]
Oregon City Approves Permit for US' First All-Wood High-Rise [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:57PM (11 children)
Termites!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:21PM (10 children)
And extremely flammable.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:11PM (4 children)
Wait a second . . . that would also possibly make the building emit lots more Carbon than it absorbed.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:49PM (3 children)
More than it absorbed? Where is that carbon coming from?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 26 2021, @07:44PM (2 children)
The carbon within the wood, which was not absorbed from outside sources during the life of the building.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @07:48PM (1 child)
Ah, I see, I took this part of the summary
to mean they were accounting for the carbon in the tree structure as part of the carbon captured by the "building".
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 27 2021, @06:27PM
Carbon during the tree's growth is in the tree/wood even if you didn't make a building from it.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:13PM (4 children)
> And extremely flammable.
If wood is extremely flammable, what words are left to describe gasoline?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:49PM (1 child)
Delicious? Fact check me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 27 2021, @06:34PM
Nutritious. It should be because it is long chain hydrocarbon molecules.
It is antifreeze that is delicious.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:11PM (1 child)
inflammable.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 27 2021, @06:30PM
Regardless or irregardless of whether gasoline is flammable or inflammable, it burns.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:23PM (4 children)
Lumber doesn't just materialize, it is cut from timber. Timber comes from forests, which are clear-cut because it is the lowest cost way to harvest the trees. When a forest is clear-cut, it destroys habitat for the forest's creatures and also the fish in the watershed, because all that soil that had been anchored by the trees gets washed out and down by the rain and snow.
The Sierra Club and other environmental lobbies had been waging a war on logging and all things produced from wood for 50 years. They didn't want anyone burning wood for heat, using it to build or make anything, or turning it into paper to print on ("The Paperless Office" was something they pushed). They didn't really succeed with any of those, because most homes are still built with wood, most furniture is built with wood, and offices still have lots of printers printing on lots of paper. They did, however, succeed in making everyone feel guilty about it, so on a PR level it was a success.
Fast forward to now, and suddenly the supermarkets are pushing paper bags as being more environmentally friendly than plastic. "Green" publications are touting wooden skyscrapers. People clamor for toilet paper. The Timber and Paper interests have flipped the green script. And not a peep from the Sierra Club.
The guys who make Earthships from old tires filled with dirt and reclaimed lumber are doing something green. The person who walks to the store instead of driving or ordering delivery from Amazon is doing something green. The lady who decides she doesn't need more stuff instead of buying an "organic, fair-trade" widget is doing something green. Most everything else, as in the example of the saga of forest products, is pure marketing meant to sell, sell, sell.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:24PM (3 children)
Er... visit the south. You'll see shitloads of completely pine forests that are repeatedly planted and harvested for lumber. Hardwoods are another matter but nobody uses hardwoods for framing walls unless they have a lot more money than sense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:13PM (2 children)
I do not know the answer, but do these replanted forests have the biodiversity of the original?
Of course, biodiversity may be overrated. We have dogs, cats, chickens and beefs. Do we need anything more?
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 26 2021, @08:24PM
I've done a bit of forest management sorts of work in my life under the guidance of someone who knew far better than I did, although I'm not more than a beginner at it.
Tree farms are definitely not as bio-diverse as a natural forest. Mono-culture of any kind never will be, by definition, and tree farms are pretty consistently all fast-growing pines. By contrast, natural forest where pines dominate still frequently have other deciduous species such birches, oaks, or maples scattered throughout, and also typically have several competing conifers. The big upside of tree farms from an environmental standpoint, though, is that all the farmed trees being cut for lumber and paper are natural-growth trees *not* being cut, and it operates a lot more like a vegetable or grain farm than it does like gathering from wild resources.
Biodiversity definitely isn't overrated though: Each species equals another potential bid for life on Earth to survive. And we're animals, so we need other life on Earth to survive if we want to survive.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:47PM
Biodiversity is not the topic at hand, carbon capture efficiency is. And using lots and lots of wood captures lots and lots of carbon if you grow trees like crops.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:29PM (1 child)
Most houses in America are made of a treated wood structure, unless you get to the far south. Perhaps because of hurricane resistance and greater termite activity, there is more concrete construction there.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:26PM
Only the stuff in contact with concrete or the ground is treated as a general rule. Treated lumber is more expensive, unnecessary, and warps worse than untreated lumber.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:31PM (1 child)
The amount of carbon a building is going to capture over it's lifetime is negligible and will have no long-term consequences for the environment, the only CO2 pollution you're saving on is the amount you'll save from producing alternative construction materials in proportion to the effects of removing the trees you used in construction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:57PM
I just got a woody.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:51PM (1 child)
I guess they don't have many termites in Norway
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday January 26 2021, @10:53PM
They don't, it's too cold for them generally. I think occasionally a few manage to get imported, but they have a hard time spreading and just get exterminated.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 26 2021, @03:39PM (4 children)
nor buildings. Steel and concrete are strong, consistent, last and last, and the price is right. The world in general probably doesn't have enough wood to switch to wood skyscrapers anyway.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:51PM (1 child)
And since we've stopped making copper-bottomed sailing ships, the bottom's fallen out of the copper market too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:19PM
> And since we've stopped making copper-bottomed sailing ships, the bottom's fallen out of the copper market too.
Haven't there been a few boom/bust cycles in copper since then? Currently, it seems possible that the demand for copper wire for electric cars (motors, power wiring) might drive another boom??
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:51PM (1 child)
Oh, Canada alone probably does. It has vast forests. I read Siberia does also; the Chinese are trying to harvest those trees as fast as they can (Netflix or Prime has, or had, a French-produced documentary on how the Chinese are eagerly exploiting natural resources in Russia's neglected and impoverished Far East).
The question is, how much do we care about the habitat for endangered species who call those forests home? Because we can't have both.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @04:02PM
This is sort of what I meant. Even if you chopped every tree, it would take decades for newly planted trees to be usable. What do you do in the interim? So obviously you can only harvest a fraction of current trees in any year. This is the real figure for "how much wood is available."
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday January 26 2021, @06:48PM (4 children)
I watched an apartment building go up in Redwood City, CA. The first floor garage and shops were steel reinforced concrete. The upper stories were wood framing. Maybe it's different in other areas, but wood is the go-to for framing single family homes in the USA and always has been. It's not going in to high-rises (the aforementioned apartments were 3 or 4 stories) but it's going in to a lot of other things.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @03:53AM (3 children)
If you don't need the strength to weight ratio of steel, wood is a lot easier to work with. And if a stud or two rots out you can replace it. It also doesn't warp if there's a fire the way that steel can. Additionally if you decide to move walls or Windows, it's easier with wood thing it would be with steel. On top of which, wood is a predictable resource, we can grow just about as much as we need without worrying too much about running out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @02:24PM
This company says their wood (in suitable engineered forms) is stronger than steel and concrete:
https://www.thestablecompany.com/blog/wood-is-good-for-its-strength [thestablecompany.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 27 2021, @04:04PM
LOL! Nobody is going to ever run out of steel. Iron is one of the most plentiful minerals on earth.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday January 27 2021, @07:20PM
Warp in a fire? No, it burns. The reason to use wood framing in Redwood City is cost and its known flexibility--it's in an area where a major earthquake could happen. Light weight wood framing will sway and hold together well if the joints meet standards. this building I saw was on flat ground which means liquifaction is a distinct possibility unless they sunk supports in to bedrock (I have no idea if they did that, or if it's even practical in that area).
Another single-story commercial building I saw go up in the same area took a different approach. They built walls of cinder block just like you'd do back east, except there were rebars going up through the blocks so it would all stay together. Then inside of that they used heavy wooden timbers for framing. It was in a row close to other buildings that may be old code, so I'm sure that was a consideration. I'd be pretty confident in that thing. I'm given to understand that the proper combination of wood and masonry gives you the best of both worlds in a quake, and that's what they did.
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