by David Brooks | Jun 17, 2022 | Blog, Newsletter | 0 comments

One of the many ways we need to change society to reduce damage to the planet is to replace concrete and steel in buildings with engineered lumber, a.k.a. cross-laminated timber. That’s a term for panels or timbers made from layering small pieces of lumber in alternating directions that are bonded together with structural adhesive. Engineered lumber is being used in buildings as tall as 20 stories since it’s strong, handsome, and fire resistant despite being made of wood.

The climate benefit is twofold: It locks away the carbon that the tree pulled out of the atmosphere and replaces the emissions-intensive process of making concrete and steel.

Tree-filled Maine is a big fan of engineered lumber, as you might expect. UMaine has an Advanced Structures and Composition Center that, among other things, determines the strengths and weaknesses of various combinations of woods, glues and geometry. That’s the kind of basic, unexciting work necessary when you’re dealing with engineering and construction practices.

The center just qualified two more types of CLT for building construction, as reported by that riveting news site, Civil and Structural Engineering Media (story here).

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Dave Brooks has written a science/tech column since 1991 – yes, that long – and has written this blog since 2006, keeping an eye on topics of geekish interest in and around New Hampshire, from software to sea level rise, population dynamics to printing (3-D, of course). He moderates monthly Science Cafe NH discussions, beer in hand, and discusses the geek world regularly on WGIR-AM radio..

Brooks earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics but got lost on the way to the Ivory Tower and ended up in a newsroom. He has reported for newspapers from Tennessee to New England. Rummage through his bag of awards you’ll find oddities like three Best Blog prizes from the New Hampshire Press Association and a Writer of the Year award from the N.H. Farm and Forest Bureau, of all places. He joined the Concord Monitor in 2015.