[Greenbuilding] Magnesium-based boards

[RT]

On Mon, 16 Sep 2013 11:59:24 -0400, Jason Holstine <jason at amicusgreen.com>  
wrote:

>
> What¹s the word on the efficacy and usability of magnesium oxide-based
> sheetgoods to use in lieu of sheetrock,

If you can dig up the archives for this list from its earliest days when  
it was hosted by CREST, there used to be a fellow whose edress was  
"EcoEco@[domain]".

His family had been involved in magnesite-based building products  
manufacturing for # generations .

He was always plugging the superiority of those magnesite-based products,  
in a fashion similar to the drain waste heat recovery and ICF systems  
fellows we see frequently these days and he was met with about the same  
reactions.

There should be some extensive threads discussing the properties, merits,  
downsides etc.

It was a long time ago but IIRC, there was no doubt that magnesite-based  
panels were superior in many aspects but (again IIRC) one paid a fairly  
substantial penalty on the Greenie scale due to their relatively high  
embodied-energy content.  (ie Magnesite requires calcining to produce  
magnesium oxide).

I also have a faint memory about suggesting that perhaps the downside of  
the high EE could be dealt with if the magnesium oxide could be  
precipitated out of seawater using solar cookers suggesting that desert  
locales adjacent to salt water bodies (ie Israel ) would be the ideal  
places to set up production facilities and since there was a scarcity of  
such near Ottawa, magnesite panels probably weren't a viable option (for  
me).

OTOH, gypsum deposits do exist here.
-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom					AOD257
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

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