16 Jun
2007
16 Jun
'07
4:24 p.m.
On 16 Jun 2007 at 14:56, Fred Cisin wrote:
and when those forests are all cut down, they will
still be importing wood
cheaply from Brazil
I hadn't realized that Brazil was a good source of softwood. The
Pacific Northwest is basically a temperate rain forest. On the "wet
side" Douglas-fir (not actually a fir) grows like weeds. The natives
here used to set fires to keep their camas fields clear of trees and
brush, but now all of those old praries are getting taken over by
trees.
Strength-to-weight of softwood compares favorably to steel and is far
ahead of brick or concrete. And you need lots of energy to make
brick and concrete and steel.
Bamboo is better, but the US doesn't grow a lot of structural bamboo.
See:
http://www.organicbuilding.com/index.mvc?ArticleID=35
Cheers,
Chuck