<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/15/its-almost-carbon-negative-how-hemp-became-a-surprise-building-material>
"
Cannabis sativa, the plant of the thousand and one molecules, has a long and
expansive reputation – as a folk medicine, a source of textile fibre for
clothes, for making rope or plugging holes in ships.
But now cannabis – or specifically its non-psychoactive variant, hemp – is
being touted for something greater still: building blocks for housing that may
avoid some of the environmental, logistic and economic downsides of concrete.
The cement industry is responsible for about 8% of planet-warming carbon
dioxide emissions, alongside problems created by unyielding surfaces and low
insulation, or R-value, properties. The search for large-scale alternatives has
so far yielded few results, but on a small scale there are intriguing
possibilities, including the use of hemp mixed with lime to create low-carbon,
more climate healthy building materials.
“There’s an enormous growth potential in the US for hemp fibre used for
building and insulation,” said Kaja Kühl, an urban designer and the founder of
youarethecity, a design and building practice based in Brooklyn, New York.
“Hemp was only legalised in 2018, but now industrial hemp is following the
first wave of CBD and cannabis.”
Last summer, Kühl, who is part of a Columbia University initiative to help
apply environmental initiatives to the Hudson Valley, completed two cottages on
a farm in upstate New York using the hemp-lime, known commercially as
hempcrete, in their construction. The blocks are not load-bearing, so the
material is used primarily for thermally efficient insulation and interior
walls.
Using prefabricated hempcrete bricks and timber to reduce carbon impact, the
two rental cottages, designed in keeping with upstate farmland architecture,
are located on the Wally Farms experimental farming incubator and designed to
demonstrate sustainable building techniques.
Kühl describes a fledgling network of advocates, designers and fabricators that
regard bio-based building materials as a way to dramatically reduce the
embodied or upfront carbon footprint of materials that, in some instances,
account for 80% of its carbon lifecycle."
Via
Positive.News
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
