Hempcrete

originally posted by: waftist
a reply to: pteridine
A fair point to consider, thx.
Lime Facts
Still, by comparison the fact that the process reabsorbs some CO2 makes this a better choice than other building materials. Additionally, CO2 is locked up in the plant during growth, so more CO2 is taken from atmosphere there too. Plus the idea that hempcrete will last much longer than standard concrete also contributes to less CO2 overall by comparison it seems, by not having to rebuild structures after 50 to 100 years. I guess nothing is perfect, but hempcrete still seems like the best way to go.

The problem with claims like this show that those making them are not aware of the technical details and the question then must be asked, "What else don't they know about hempcrete?" Many good intentioned folks have just enough knowledge of the technology to make counter-productive statements that bring all of the technology into question.
Ignorant tree huggers should not try to gild the lily; they should just zip their lips and let scientists and engineers develop the technology. Questions that might be asked would be how much hemp would be needed to replace say 1% of existing concrete structures. How much farmland would be needed to grow the hemp and how much energy and of what type would be required to collect and process that amount of hemp. Would the farmland be good enough for food production or could a lesser soil be used? Fertilizer? Pesticide? What other enviro-solution to CO2 would compete for the use of that soil? Many biomass dreamers were pushing camelina, grown on marginal land, to be used as fuel oil and other such bio solutions.
Then, there are the details of the product itself. There would have to be standards and formulations, much like concrete, so there wouldn't be any hemptastrophes. Some applications of concrete couldn't be easily replaced with hempcrete because of early strength and ultimate strength limitations. There would be questions about why hemp, why not pozzalan or some other filler.
A case would have to be made for the use of hemp, including economics so that banks would finance the hemcrete factories.

a reply to: pteridine

Ignorant tree huggers should not try to gild the lily; they should just zip their lips and let scientists and engineers develop the technology.

Before I reply are you insinuating that I am an ignorant tree hugger, or people in the article I linked? I ask because it will affect my reply.

ETA:I'll take my chances and assume you may be including me.
If it bothers you and you wish for people to actually learn after making such uninformed assumptions(I can admit I have done this at times), it seems belittling them shuts down the learning process and is also disrespectful. So maybe addressing issue without the condescending remarks may actually help people learn from the points you make. Doesn't that seem more productive? Otherwise one may not wish to continue discussion.

I appreciate your points and no, I had not considered them. If one gilds the lily with ignorance, well help them to stop or do it right, but without the name calling. Disabling ignorance is done more effectively by replacing it with fact, but delivering facts is more effective when done altruistically, imho. The best teachers educate without intentionally making others feel inferior.

Now poster's that make initially throw out insults or claim that they know it all and are absolutely right in their view...well that's fair game I suppose for insults.

originally posted by: waftist
a reply to: pteridine

Ignorant tree huggers should not try to gild the lily; they should just zip their lips and let scientists and engineers develop the technology.

Before I reply are you insinuating that I am an ignorant tree hugger, or people in the articles and vids presented throughout thread? I ask because it will affect my reply.

No, I wasn't including you or anyone on a closed system like ATS.

The most annoying are those with the bully pulpit who know literally nothing about the technical details which is where the technical devils are. Think Hollywood, Al Gore, Sierra Club, and everyone who thinks that the Hydrogen Economy is an actual possibility. Many of the vids are of those who are excited about the possibility but don't understand how technologies are developed or how long it takes or how much investment is required. Many don't understand that the problems with the sheer volume of the hemp required to make a dent in any market are not insignificant. This will start as a niche market and may just stay there or may slowly develop. There are many stoners who were promoting hemp thinking that they could slip a little something else in the crop. They tend to poison the well, also.

Say you are a hemp farmer. You can sell your hemp to any market you want such as rope, cloth, and hempcrete. What market would you expect would pay more? What would you be competing against in each market? Maybe hempcrete would get the fibers that couldn't be made into higher value items, like cloth. Would that still work and how much of that material would be available?

a reply to: pteridine
I got ya and thanks for the reply. I tried to find out if any financial institutions have actually financed hempcrete for construction and I haven't been able to find any. So you are right, there must be more testing. I admit to being overly optimistic about innovations such as this, but I am grateful to have a more informed spectrum to consider. So thanks for giving me multiple things to ponder with this topic and in general with my line of thinking.

ETA: Oh yea, please pardon my assumption and sermon above.

originally posted by: waftist
a reply to: pteridine
I got ya and thanks for the reply. I tried to find out if any financial institutions have actually financed hempcrete for construction and I haven't been able to find any. So you are right, there must be more testing. I admit to being overly optimistic about innovations such as this, but I am grateful to have a more informed spectrum to consider. So thanks for giving me something to ponder with this topic and in general with my line of thinking.

Not a problem. I regularly have to throw cold water on some keen energy and environmental ideas that work well as a one-off but fail on a large scale. It is the scale that confounds many people. I find that a large proportion of people have little understanding of physical technology and engineering, in general. When I am told that biomass will replace fossil fuels, I first have to explain that fossil fuels are "vintage biomass" concentrated into handy packages and then we go from there.

ETA: As an example, not long ago people were touting growing algae as a feedstock for fuel. There are myriad technical problems that would prevent this but the developers discovered that the amounts of algae that they could reasonably grow was far more valuable as nutraceuticals.
$1/gallon or $1/pill was the choice.

a reply to: pteridine

I was digging around about farming benefits to growing hemp, as in it requires less fertilizer and pest management and is better for soil compared with other products. But you have disabled my logic, haha, so now I just might take your advise and wait for the scientists, engineers and farmers to figure this out before jumping the gun.

A more recent (2017)scientific link, pdf for the mix LI nk This is a pdf download and I can't link it otherwise, but it's the 2nd one down on google page titled Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity - Federation of American Scientists

More on Hemp Uses for general consideration. I just thought it was interesting and written by scientists.

a reply to: waftist
My father and grandfather were hemp farmers until the tax drove them out of that business. It was just a part of a diversified farm where they raised corn, sorghum, hay, cotton and hemp. The hemp was grown in the gullies and on hillsides where corn or hay did poorly. Bottom land was used for sorghum and cotton. Cotton and hemp were the cash crops for the families. They sold the fibers and fed what was left to the cattle and hogs.
It can be planted thickly on a hillside to stop erosion. It readily re-seeds the area when harvested so required less output of labor. Doesn't require fertilizer. Those were the biggest issues when it was legal. They could use their fertilizer (manure from the livestock) to enrich the cotton fields, gardens and orchards. Hemp, cotton and tobacco were the main cash crops in our area (western KY). Of those, only hemp didn't require individually owned specialized equipment or storage areas. The stripping machines made rounds of the county during harvest season. Even sharecroppers who didn't own any specialized farming equipment could plant hemp on the hillsides and reap a bit of cash as well as food for the livestock. I'm told that there is nothing better than eggs from chickens that were fed hemp seeds.

My Father never got over being "robbed" by Congress. They took away a valuable livestock food as well as a cash crop for a lot of people who were woefully short of cash during the Great Depression.

a reply to: diggindirt

Yea it seems as far as fabric production from farming to final product, hemp is superior. Cotton is one of the most fertilizer/pest management intense agricultural products. Hemp seems to be better for the soil with crop rotation and the roots reach deeper into soil creating better aeration. It has a natural weed suppression and requires less fertilizer. It's too bad I can't find genuine science studies on farming hemp to be so beneficial.

As member pteridine has mentioned, we should all be patient and not overly add any hype outside of our personal enthusiasm. I want to keep the movement tied to science and research, which there is some available, but there is more opinion than fact out there it seems. Still, hemp for fabric vs cotton does seem to lean towards hemp as a better choice.

China is utilizing hemp for fabric, and all signs I see point to it becoming more viable as a fabric crop/product.

a reply to: waftist

This book has a lot of science in it via footnotes and references and discussion. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Hemp, Lifeline to the Future, by Chris Conrad

This book was first published in 1993, so there is undoubtedly a lot of new science, but this is a good start. Googling the title (hemp lifeline to the future) returns further references you may wish to explore. You can order it online, but I have seen it in lots and lots of bookstores, both "alternative" and mainstream, and of course 'head shops' often have a bookshelf too.

This book also has a lot of science in it (but it is about Marijuana, not Hemp):

Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review of the Scientific Evidence, by Lynn Zimmer Ph.D. and John P. Morgan M.D.

Edit 1:
As for farming, the USDA has plenty of literature on the subject, though I expect that for political reasons it probably hasn't been updated in quite a while. There is also a lot of expertise around on how to, for example, use it for paper and such.

What I have always regretted is that I can't find a lot of information on how exactly to get it from the paddock to the farm gate, but darned if I didn't just find about 80% of the info I wanted right here: How Industrial Hemp is Made

Edit 2:
And this old web page that I bookmarked years ago may have broken links, but there could still be some good stuff there...
Industrial Hemp.net Hemp References Links Page

Edit 3: Moar Science

The USDA reported in 1916 that an acre of hemp produced as much paper as four acres of trees annually , yet 70% of American forest have been destroyed since 1916.

While fiddling around trying to source this quote (I didn't find the source, but I have seen it many times) and see if there was a modern update, I googled

hemp cellulose versus tree cellulose

I got a bunch of useful links, but interestingly the top hit was a link to Google Scholar list of over 20,000 scientific articles on on using hemp fiber in composites versus other fiber such as wood or bamboo or whatever. I think that Hempcrete qualifies as a composite, but I'm not sure these articles are talking about that.

Of course, everyone has seen this official US film, haven't they?

a reply to: pteridine

Those cradle to grave product analyses have a way of really taking the wind out of "earth friendly" product's sails LOL!

It's almost like a majority of "earth friendly" tagged products and etc out there really aren't that way at all and it's become just one more marketing buzzword or something....

Naaaaahhhg

a reply to: rnaa

They're actually talking about high performance material type composites like carbon fiber and kevlar etc....

Hemp is extremely useful on it's own, but combined with stuff that has come out of the 3d printing revolution it has potential to be a a literal one stop shop almost for a huge majority of what's needed to build and maintain a high tech and very prosperous society.