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A comment on Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete. Parent comment

Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by taejo on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @07:49AM (#17958812)
Building houses is great, but if you're growing the trees in order to sequestrate carbon, you'd better be reasonably sure a decent proportion of the wood doesn't release it's carbon within the next fifty years. I don't live in a country where wood is a major building material, but I'm imagining that most wood that goes into building gets discarded within a few decades and ends up decomposing or being burnt.
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Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by abbe_k on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:51AM (#17959236)
If treated and maintained right it can last hundreds of years. So this is not really an issue and if you replace it with new wood it will still store carbon.
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Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by taejo on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @04:37AM (#17966563)
> if you replace it with new wood it will still store carbon.

Good point, although you need to be sure you aren't counting the wood you replace it with as more carbon storage. Every wooden house essentially provides a fixed amount of carbon storage, no matter how much of it is replaced, and only as long as it stands.

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Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by chii on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:00AM (#17958889)
and wood doesn't make for a building material that can go higher than a few stories.
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Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by vidarh on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @11:20AM (#17960520)
Here's a 14 story wood-based apartment building in Norway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5XsqauBCX4

http://treetsameie.no/

There are many other wood-based buildings higher than that being planned. The key for most of them is the use of various hybrid wood-laminates.

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Re:Robotic 'trees' can turn CO2 into concrete by abbe_k on Tuesday September 11, 2018 @08:58AM (#17959288)
Of course you're not getting skyscrapers from them but nowadays you can build at least five floors which is not that bad. Most buildings are below that I think.
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