[Greenbuilding] New Type of Chipboard

[Alan Abrams]

<Look at cellulose insulation - a stupid product >

John- that is the first time I've heard a serious criticism of cellulose
insulation. I thought it was heroic on my part, to wean myself from foam,
and instead to use chopped up George Will columns. What ho?

-AA

Alan Abrams

*certified professional building designer, AIBDcertified passive house
consultant, PHIUS*
*certified passive house builder, PHIUS*
cell     202-437-8583
alan at abramsdesignbuild.com
HELICON WORKS *Achitecture and Education*
<http://www.heliconworks.com/index2.html>

On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 11:56 PM, John Salmen <terrain at shaw.ca> wrote:

> I like the 'minimal surplus' ratio and would only say that rather than
> doing
> things wrong we have no clue as to what 'right' is. In the 50's the US
> established something called T values for soil erosion - giving permission
> for farmers (agribusiness) to be right or not wrong if erosion was
> something
> like .5 to 1mm roughly. They (whoever that is) now puts conventional agri
> soil loss at 1mm/yr globally (wherever that is). The question really is
> what
> makes and sustains soil. The only models are native vegetation and one of
> the terms applied is 'geologic erosion rate' - being the rate that the
> decay
> of native vegetation matches the rate at which the soil erodes. In the PNW
> I
> think that is now considered to be about 100% i.e. no surplus. I have 50
> year old fir trees falling over indiscriminately in my woods because there
> is no soil to support them. I have left them in the lying down status.
>
> Can we make engineered building products from corn - sure why not - will it
> succeed - probably not in the short term as we already have a huge industry
> grinding up quick growing trees and it takes a decade or so for an industry
> to develop and few more decades to be supplanted. Look at cellulose
> insulation - a stupid product that has consumed far too many resources but
> once it became a product the resources were dedicated to it. Same with
> engineered wood.
>
> The problem still is scale. I think the average house size in NA is around
> 2500 sq. ft. which is about 1000 sq. ft. too much for the average family
> size. That is where the trees or corn are going. Ironically people are also
> consuming about the same ration of calories more than are needed (corn,
> corn
> fed beef?) - which is also soil loss.
>
> I am now using engineered wood extensively in structures as well as metal -
> whatever does the work with the least material. I am at the point where if
> a
> client wants to see wood - I can recommend taking a hike in what are left
> of
> our forests.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greenbuilding [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
> ]
> On Behalf Of Topher
> Sent: September-20-14 3:42 PM
> To: archilogic at yahoo.ca; Green Building
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] New Type of Chipboard
>
> On 9/18/2014 9:31 AM, RT wrote:
> > So, in addition to depleting nitrogen from the soil (nitrogen being
> > essential to leafy vegetative growth), the long decomposition time of
> > the very coarse debris hinders planting of the next growing season's
> crop.
>
> My understanding is that this should be phrased as 'binding up nitrogen
> during the decomposition'.  In other words, decomposing woody materials
> requires nitrogen in the process, but that nitrogen eventually becomes
> available to plants again, it isn't lost (to the atmosphere, for example).
>
> That said, soil chemistry and biology is incredibly complex, and we
> generally appear to be doing almost completely wrong.
>
> The basic take away is that removing ANY organic materials from the
> biological cycle, beyond a minimal surplus*, is going to reduce the
> efficacy
> of the system.
>
> * - Minimal surplus can be guesstimated at 1/1Millionth of yearly
> production
> (calculated from our current usage of fossil fuels at the rate of a million
> years of production per year).
>
> Thank You Kindly,
>
> Topher
>
> --
> Topher Belknap
> Green Fret Consulting
> Kermit didn't know the half of it...
> http://www.GreenFret.com/
> topher at greenfret.com
>
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