this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Tree Huggers
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Wood is enjoying a resurgence of development as a building material. Perhaps it can be treated such that it becomes stable on the order of thousands of years instead of just hundreds, and replace a great deal of highly emitting materials like steel and concrete.
Yeah I’ve heard of some kinds of processes where the wood is injected with polymers or something, turning it into a much more solid structure.
I have a coffee table I inherited from my grandfather which is wood encased in some kind of ultra hard epoxy resin. The thing feels like an absolute tank!
Engineered wood products have replaced steel girders in a small number of highrise/skyscraper buildings. It's a huge, huge carbon win, not even considering the sequestration in the frame.
That is really cool! I didn’t know they were that far along!
The Portland (Oregon) airport recently finished remodeling their main atrium area and they used some pretty incredible engineered wood beams. I know a guy who worked on the mill that built those beams. The mill assembles plywood veneer (thin sheets about an eighth of an inch or so, usually in 4x8 foot sheets) into like 16 inch thick, 12 foot wide, however long you want pieces, and then they can basically cut out anything that isn't a beam from this massive brick of engineered wood.
Here's a pic
The picture doesn't show these massive plywood beams, but if you ever fly through pdx, go check out the main atrium just past security. It's absolutely breathtaking, and it's mostly wood.