Wood: the Good, the Bad, and the "Neutral"

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 then transported to a sawmill where they are cut into lumber. The first cut is referred to as a "rough cut," but it actually isn't that rough. The boards are then dried and cut again, producing the final product. Before wrapping up our general overview of lumber, let's talk about one of the most used terms, 2" by 4". In reality, this doesn't actually mean two inches by four inches. The actual dimensions are 1.5" by 3.5" due to the drying of the wood and the second cut. Interesting, yet confusing!

Now we have a general idea about lumber, but let's take a deeper dive into some newer products. These products are none other than engineered wood! With engineered wood, you'll find three separate types, sheets glued together, woodchips glued together, and lumber glued together. The first type entails thin sheets of wood glued on top of each other, which is usually referred to as plywood. The other two types consist of products such as fiberboard, particleboard, and cross-contaminated lumber. The important thing to know is that each one of these enhancements has a specific purpose, which is why they were engineered in the first place. We are continuing to see more and more modifications and engineering being done to wood, and I doubt this will ever stop. Hopefully, in our lifetimes we could see wood that never rots! It's just a thought, but wouldn't that be cool!

So far we have talked about two pretty cool features of wood, but is it always all sunshine and rainbows? As we all know, trees take carbon out of our atmosphere and store it until their death. However, trees die in a multitude of ways, and this greatly affects us. If the tree dies a natural death, the carbon taken in and released is about the same. If the tree is harvested for lumber, the carbon is still stored inside the tree until the lumber meets the end of its life. If the tree is harvested for energy, the carbon is immediately released back into the atmosphere. All of these processes have one thing in common, they are carbon neutral. However, they each release their carbon at different times, which could be a significant factor. In reality, you may see that if trees are only carbon neutral, is there are real gain? You may have a point, but in my mind, it's better to be neutral than negative, which other materials are such as concrete. Wood should be used more often, and I hope you can see that now!

In this blog, I had a really good time writing and learning about everything related to wood! Wood is the original gangsta, and oftentimes I think it's getting overlooked because of this. Just because a new innovation comes along, doesn't mean that the old one is worse! The use of lumber and newly engineered products show just have useful wood truly is, and it isn't even bad for the environment! I can't wait for you to join me next time until then, take care. https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.dJ1zYqbAH-yzFz-2Wp9XRQHaE8?pid=ImgDet&rs=1 https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.8f860a4888630095cd7d2d9f972df65a?rik=fmVPsqZS8DTUtA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.woodweb.com%2fgalleries%2fsawmill%2fimages%2f364%2fIMG_0725.JPG&ehk=mjbom4EOJ4fnJ%2bS5ANfE9jbItleGGBZws5qM9c6bXo0%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0 https://www.iamrenew.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Carbon-Storage-by-trees.jpg https://www.giatecscientific.com/education/wood-vs-concrete-best-choice-builders-contractors/ Lesson 13 - Forest to Lumber, BBE 1002, UMN Lesson 15 - Engineered Wood Products, BBE 1002, UMN Lesson 17 - Is Wood Good?, BBE 1002, UMN