Biorenewable Resources

Hello again everyone! Last time I tried to give you as much information about corn as possible! This week, we are focusing on wood. Unsurprisingly, wood has a variety of positives and negatives, and I'm here to tell you about them! We first will take a look at how lumber is made, which is a surprisingly interesting process. Next, we'll see how this lumber is used to engineer specialized wood products, which has completely changed the industry. Finally, we will wrap it all up as we look at if wood is truly good or not. Sit back, relax, and try and learn a thing or two :) Let us first take a deep dive into lumber, the main product of wood! In order to make lumber, the trees actually have to be harvested. They are harvested in one of three ways: selection harvesting, clear-cutting, or shelterwood harvesting. Think of these processes as time-dependent, as the maturity of the tree oftentimes makes the decision on how they are harvested. After your trees are harvested, they are the...

 Corn - The Swiss Army Knife of the U.S. Hello everyone! I am back at it for my second blog of the year, and I think I have some very interesting topics for you to hear about! Today, we are going to be talking about anything and everything related to farming! Here in the US, farming is extremely important. However, the ways it is conducted are vastly different. I'm here to show you a couple of different practices for farming in the United States, and I think you'll be surprised by how interesting they actually are! When you hear the term farming, it is most common to think about corn. Corn is the most grown crop here in the US, so that's what we'll be focusing on today. In order for me to tell you anything about corn, you first must understand how it is produced. Corn is an annual monoculture crop, which means a cornfield is strictly a cornfield, and there is one harvest per year. The first step in growing corn is soil preparation. Here in America, this can be done in a...

 Hi all!  Welcome to my first blog post! I am excited to take you along for the ride as we both learn more about our resources on earth!  Copper mines---What do they bring and how are they affecting Minnesotans?  First off, let me just say that since I am based in Minnesota, a lot of my topics will be centered around how it is affecting our state. Let's now talk about the PolyMet mine, a focal point for copper mining here in Minnesota. In the outlined plan, roughly 19,000 acres are required. This land would be used to produce 225 million tons of resources, more specifically, 1.6 billion pounds of copper. Now you may be thinking, what on earth can we possibly use all this copper for? Well, let me tell you. First off, copper is the main component in wind turbines. My guess would be that if you have ever driven through rural Minnesota, you would see these scattered in between corn and soybean fields. Besides wind turbines, we also see copper used in every electric gener...