Future Alternative Building Materials

I guess I'm having a meaning problem.

Is your question saying that we will run out of clay for bricks, soil, rocks and sand of building materials quality before we run out of renewables like wood,rubber, polymer, and resins?

What is your target planetary population number that will consume all the soil and rocks for building materials resources on the planet?

Are you assuming that these materials will not be further recycled?

Buildings in europe have been in continuous use / reuse for centuries.

Just trying to understand the basis of your question.

By my reckoning we have a lot of rock on this planet...

May I respectfully suggest that we ask "what is the smallest mass of building materials needed to provide a safe and comfortable living, work and recreation space needed per person for the entire planet?"

milo

Hello MILO,

Thank you for the input.

By recycling building materials, what is meant? Do you mean to say there are professional companies collect demolished buildings? May I know how it is recycled.Here in INDIA it is partially used for floor filling,and the remnants are left as such.

Coming to the brick part of it, lot of fertile soil is being consumed for brick making.Sand again is becoming a scarce commodity. Over all the cost of construction here is shooting up like anything, particularly the middle class. The construction process is also slower and much time consuming. Think of non available areas like gulf countries and the import burden involved.

It is with the collective interest, of reduced environmental impact and quicker building construction process, the retrofittablity of artificial walls[light weight structures is being sorted. To be frank I am not a civil engineer, but an environmentalist.

GA

Maybe I am not so blind

Paperstone is very intriguing as a building material

BWIRE,

Thanks for the post. It sounds strong ,when it it is called wood, than paper. Hylum a possible replacement. The resin part can also be a refined product from natural products like rosin.

The thing of concern is the safety of cellulosic walls from fire risks, a major criteria to be met. Technology can meet that. Potential areas of research and commercial worth.

It has a class (A) fire rating

Well, soil cement. It's a deep subject. Look into it. Check out; 'rammed earth.', 'Soil cement'. etc,

Does not work as a panacea, and has limited though excellent characteristics for it's possibilities. Commercially difficult. Other wise I would be a rich man. I went so far as to covincience a backer to buy a redi-mix partioned mixer, using the 1/8 ratio I used on my own home. The trouble was set times. Too long, yet after a year, you could not drive a nail into it.

Out side of the box is the only way to think nowadays.

Building materials can be recycled. maybe in the future we can gen-engineer a growing tree house?

The first material for the building was neglected/abandoned- It is the land,the houses must stay on something, in most cases it is the land.

I read in the 200 anniversary of the USA in the "national geographic",ideas of some futurists ,and Isak Asimow said that mankind ought to treat land/earth more carefully,with more respect.

So he ofered that the cities will be build in like caves carved in mountains.

I live in a tiny country-Israel,and I feel very bad about every patch of land that is used to build new dwelling, I know people dont like the idea of living in caves,but if every appartment will have an open veranda to the slope, the dwelling rooms and kitchen may take place inside.

A chimney like window will enable sun light to enter the appartment.

The same should be for factories,and malls etc.

This modern caves will save much energy for air conditioning as well,and every family will have open space to wild nature as well!

Az native,

With limitations on resources, there comes scientific management.Recently I had the chance of visiting Red fort in Agra and few similar spots in Delhi.The construction observed was similar to what you have quoted-Fort walls, tall and secured, maximum of pillars without much hindrance to visibility, secured with doors and walls are the record rooms, others are open verandas, Your statement reminded me that.

Concrete as currently produced using cement from limestone is hardly a sustainable material - but there are less energy intensive substitutes.

Try explaining that to the limestone people

I am an engineer at Dryvit systems Inc. We are in the Exterior Insulation Finish Sytems business (EIFS). We have an EIFS panelized System in which the panels are prefabed off site at a manufacturing facility and then installed at the construction site either over steel construction. I believe these EIFS prefabed panels could be installed over a concrete matrix? although I am not sure by what you mean by "concrete matrix" . Our EIFS System consist of EPS (w/insulative qualities) adhered either with a cementious base adhesive / or mechanically attached to a suitible substrate follwed by application of cementious base coat embeded with fiberglass mesh, and then an acrylic finish to match just about any texture or appearence.

Is this some thing you be intetrested in finding out more about?

Brian

Bhickeys,

Thank you for the input.My contention is -The foundation, Basic support beam structures, multiple floorings, all put together being made of concrete reinforced, can the walls part be retrofit table?

This is aimed to reduce the consumption of possible bricks.

s.udhayamarthandan,

Please don't take this as an affront.

I suppose blindness is one problem I'm experiencing too. It seems in reading your statement you are asking us to define and justify the venue you've alluded to.

You need to sharpen your point!

Hello Bwire,

Every thing can not be learned by indulging. On going technologies in this direction are sought for possible assessment. Just inputs for my knowledge faculty.

hi udhaya,

check this link, they are inline with your thoughts and are very much in India.

http://cybc.ekduniya.com/cybc

thanks,

kayems

Hi Kayems,

You are right. I had been to the website you have suggested. The building waste recycling is being systematically done. Thanks for the post.

Interesting to note the use of "fertile soil" for brickmaking. I assume you mean mud brick (adobe, mexcala, cobb). Here in the US for the last couple hundred years we use clay (which is pretty much sterile) to make bricks. Heat is required to fire them, but they last indefinitely and are reuseable/recyclable.

I agree that burning limestone for cement is energy intensive. Too bad nobody has figured out a way to harness an active volcano for these kind of high-heat-input processes. In a perfect world, we would put so much heat extracting equpment around every volcanic "hot spot" that we'd never see another greenhouse-gas-belching eruption.

Well ,the answer must come from the self renewing side of the equation in my estimation.

Some parts of the world are going to be better placed than others to achieve this, but transportation of the material should not preclude the use of such materials on a world wide basis.

Centuries ago there was wide spread use of timber and other bio-products to construct dwellings. Modern techniques to bond these materials into board products are an obvious way forward. The manufacuring plants are self sufficient for the energy required and can even produce surplus electricity; which is more than can be said of the 'cementatious industry'.

I have come to detest the blanket use of the word 'sustainable' and all its derivatives as they are meaningless in any context involving human activity.

Most of what is talked about is pointless as the big issue is going to be how we feed the population of the world and the current excessive dependance on fossil fuel to power the agricultural production processes ( artificial fertilisers, draw-bar kWs ,pest control ,harvesting kWs etc,).

The existing portfolio of building products is vast and capable of being rationalised into those best suited to each type of physical/structural application. Clearly there is a world of a difference in what you use to build a nuke, hydro dam or a supermarket.

If mankind continues its migration into city-sized connurbations we are only adding to all the existing infrastructure problems. The question therefore comes down to how to buy some time initially whilst more lasting solutions are established; population control in the 21st century must be an essential factor.

I heard the other day that world oil consumption is currently running at 85M barrels PER DAY, and there are expectations that this could peak at 100M B/d in 10/15 years.

Then what??

MASSEY 726,

Priority areas like fossil fuels, on going demand for power etc, are being spelt in the context of sustainable development, meaning meeting the need with minimum environmental damage. I do agree, in spite of the slogan no marked impacts had been obtained. But the situation is that sustainability had to be addressed in human activities in relation to environment. This consideration may lead to awareness and alternate developments, new manipulations, products and technologies at least by future. Let us hope and work for the best.

"I heard the other day that world oil consumption is currently running at 85M barrels PER DAY, and there are expectations that this could peak at 100M B/d in 10/15 years."

If you listen carefully you can hear the sucking sound. This is the crux: there is no resource that is nearly as versatile and cheap as in joules per $$$, and we are so invested in an oil economy it would take a huge energy draw to make a conversion to another source. We should have started weening from the oil nipple a generation ago.

As for sustainable building materials, I see it as a localized issue. The resources available in Northern California are very different than in India. We still have operating lumber mills out here and, finally, lumber companies are practicing 'sustainable harvesting'.

On a larger scale hemp has shown great promise for building materials. They have made 'I' beams stronger than steel. Of course, back in 1930's, hemp/marijuana was criminalized not because of 'reefer madnes' rather because it was a threat to the industrial monopoly of timber holdings and oil interests... BTW hemp seed oil is an excellent replacement for fossil oils. Hemp also replaces top soil and is a net consumer of carbon, even after burning the oil it produces.

I agree that suitable materials are going to be decided on a site basis.

In White Cliffs, Coober Pedy and Lightning Ridge (all opal mining towns), underground is the way to go. 50C outside by day and comfortable inside, below 0 outside at night and comfortable inside. The view isn't great, but the view outside isn't much better!

Here in Cairns, light, timber construction is suitable. We have fairly small temp variations over a day and mild winters, so matching outside temp is acceptable most of the year. (The most common construction, however, is concrete filled concrete block. The house is then air conditioned to make it bearable to live in!)

In some areas in the outback, solid stone construction with wide verandahs all around roughly mimics the benefits of a cave. As we currently lack convict (almost slave) labor, this type of massive construction is now too expensive.

Try building an underground house and see the trouble you have getting it past the local Council! Yet this is one of the most environmentally sound methods of construction and with modern methods of earthmoving and rock excavation, potentially increasingly economical - except for the bureaucrats!

It also doesn't use up viable agricultural land. Most development these days seems to use the best farm land, forcing farming onto increasingly marginal land for it's purpose. (And we are supposed to be getting smarter?)

How much are environmental advances held up by existing laws and bureaucracy?

Enough ranting

How much are environmental advances held up by existing laws and bureaucracy?

Fifty years on average

"If you listen carefully you can hear the sucking sound. This is the crux: there is no resource that is nearly as versatile and cheap as in joules per $$$, and we are so invested in an oil economy it would take a huge energy draw to make a conversion to another source. We should have started weening from the oil nipple a generation ago."

If we let the markets handle it, the law of supply and demand will manage the oil supply for us quite nicely. If supplies fall behind demand, prices will skyrocket, forcing the switchover to alternate fuels. Problem solved. The switch from a coal economy to an oil economy happened all by itself with no large-scale disruptions.

Back to the original post, why can't we import resources from other planets? Mother Earth can then export finished goods back to the colonies on Luna, Mars, Ganymede, Titan, etc. We have the tools, we have the technology- all we need is the will.

The law of supply and demand only works in a free economy. We haven't been in a free economy since the Federal Reserve Bank began issuing currency. Also, there is a pretty tight monopoly in the energy markets, not allowing free-market flux. As far as I know we are still pretty dependent on leveling mountaintops for coal. With an economy built on infinite growth while on a planet with finite resources we will need to harvest extraterrestrial resources. When's the last time we set foot on another celestial body? How much terrestrial energy is it going to take to setup an infrastructure to harvest extraterrestrial energy? You have a lot more faith in the current system than I do.

Hi Mark,

I would disagree about effects of transferring from a coal based economy to one based on oil being without disruption. Having experienced the social havoc caused by the mining industry being literally demolished as the UK went for north sea gas in the 1980s I reckon any step change is a force to be reckoned with.

There is little point in looking to the stars for our salvation until some sci-fi technology appears to replace the rocket as a means of getting off this world. Perhaps one day such things will appear but long before that day dawns we are all going to feel the effects of a world running out of oil and food.

We cannot go on expending the resources even at the current rate let alone at high ones !

The engineer played a vital role in the Industrial revolution now it must be in the Ecological revolution; feeding the world is probably the greatest challenge. The prolific use of oil products to produce food is not sustainable , we will have to accept lower levels of productivity per hectare than current methods of land husbandry deliver as just one small step towards bringing production energy expenditure under control.

"One thing is sure , we have to helplessly use resources on the planet and not any thing ferried from other planets."

Of course not. You would be much better off mining asteroids than planets. And personally I think those are best used in space for making colonies.

I have no doubt that we will have very useful nanotech capability before too long. I would not worry about recycling anything. Of the rarest naturally occurring element on the planet there is a few tons for each of the present 6 billion people.

Interesting thread,i think you have 3 sticking points:

1. renewable and non-renewable resources, the first is biomass the later is oil, coal, minerals.
2. Energy of exploitation, production & distribution (embodied energy).

1. Economics, a society that approaches sustainability nears zero economic growth. Previously economics has been based on exponential growth, ie the profit margin is a profit based on last years figures as a percentage growth on top.

Timber has too be the top environmental building material, for the following reasons:

• As a managed natural resource we can plant and selectively harvest so as to keep constant woodland cover, this protects ground water, provides soil stabilisation and develops top soil, whilst cycling atmospheric CO2.
• The timber obtained can be used green to build high mass timber frame buildings designed for at least 100years lifespan therefore habitation becomes the carbon sink for minimum 100 years, conversion of trees to timber is exceptionally low in embodied energy, as the sawmilling can be done on site. This can then reduce transport costs and related energy consumption through lorry production and fuel use.
• Ecobuilding will provide local skilled jobs and create involved communities lowering policing, welfare and health costs. The only people who don't want this is the fat cats making money out of environmental destruction and the sweat of their workers. Unfortunately corruption of our democracies has given them control of our political system.
• see http://greenwoodfutures.co.uk/
  

Treepirate

GA and thank you for the response. Plant based resources sounds to me to be a potential renewable source as is proven-like fruits,vegetables and grains for that matter.

According to my hopes, by proper resources distribution management systems like water, upper soil filling on deserts and use of un used un habituated lands, growing trees for global greening and exploitation as a potential renewable material should not be tough task. It just calls for an open minded global welfare concern by one and all including international communities.

Some countries are massively exploiting available resources like fossil fuels ,minerals etc, with least focus on alternative all round resources building. It calls for a total good will and a broader concern.

I would also like to post my regards to all those who have shared their open views in this thread.

Treepirate,

You speak well in support of the development of the timber based construction economy. I think that promoting a genuinely renewable focused construction industry is achievable ;once the impediments you mention are removed.

Interestingly there are related energy options attaching to the increased use of timber in that the discarded materials, bark mbranches and saw dust are capable of being converted into wood chip and pellet products. Thereafter distributing to end users becomes viable and a good substitution for the fossil equivalent. The technology is all out there its the motivation to employ it which is weak and subject to political interference!

We need joined up thinking and plenty of it to get us out of the rut we're in!

Yes total agreement science should be taking an integrated approach to the challenge of reducing reliance on finite resources, yes we can exploit off the planet resources but at an incredible energy cost for good television. If we can't master terrestrial carbon cycling and energy use, how can we be so arrogant as to think we can run away from our mess!! intelligent humanity would be researching all ways of efficient energy and resource use.

This is a win win scenario all sustainability / environment scientists would be glad to be wrong. However the social and climatic repurcussions of inactivity are likely to be severe.

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