The Lumber Shortage Sucks, But Lab-Grown Wood Could Save Your Next DIY Project

[corbe]

The Lumber Shortage Sucks, But Lab-Grown Wood Could Save Your Next DIY Project

Tim Newcomb - 4h ago

With deforestation and natural disasters decimating timber stands, lab-grown options offer hope for the future of building.

MIT researchers can customize properties of plant materials to tweak them for different uses.

The lab-based process can reduce time and waste from the process.

As wood grows more scarce across the globe—think deforestation and forest-devastating wildfires—researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a plan: to grow wood-like timber in a lab. And the MIT effort comes fully customizable, taking plant material and modifying it to the needs of DIYers just like you.

In the MIT project, researchers crafted wood-like plant material in the lab, adjusting chemicals in the growth process to precisely control the physical and mechanical properties, such as stiffness and density. That makes the end result potentially viable as a wood substitute in a variety of construction projects.

“This work demonstrates the power that a technology at the interface between engineering and biology can bring to bear on an environmental challenge,” Jeffrey Borenstein, a biomedical engineer and group leader at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, says in a May 25 news release. He adds that the work is “leveraging advances originally developed for health care applications.”

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-lumber-shortage-sucks-but-lab-grown-wood-could-save-your-next-diy-project/ar-AAYgMIr?bk=1&bk=1&ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6ae881bbccd74ab78d09cd8a00553395

[roamer_1]

These people have never been where there ain't sidewalks in their entire life. Including the author.

[libertybele]

???? Lab grown wood?  Joy!/s

[DB]

Just perhaps those devastating wildfires wouldn't happen if they used the trees for building things besides massive wildfires.

[roamer_1]

Just perhaps those devastating wildfires wouldn't happen if they used the trees for building things besides massive wildfires.

*FACTS*

[Smokin Joe]

How much (net) carbon dioxide does this lab grown wood remove from the atmosphere? (or does the process actually contribute more to the atmosphere? Be honest, include the electricity generation for the process and production of all chemicals involved)