The price of lumber was around $300 per thousand board feet this time last year. In a year the price of lumber has risen 400% to $1,686 per thousand board feet. This surge in prices has added $39,000 to the price of a single-family new home and $13,000 for a multi-family home.

The surge is caused by an increase in demand, a shortage in labor supply, and in small part, tariffs on imports from Canada.

Many are turning to hemp construction materials as lumber prices don’t seem to be dropping anytime soon. Hemp can be used in more than 25,000 products like fibers, textiles, paper, construction, insulation materials, food, and fuel.

Industrial hemp was banned nationwide in 1937 but in December of 2018, industrial hemp was legalized with the passage of the Agricultural Improvement act.

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Other countries in Europe have already been using hemp products for years while the U.S is far behind in manufacturing and using these products. The hempcrete block similar to concrete blocks used in construction are lighter, easier to produce, do not degrade over time, absorb carbon, and assemble like legos.

For around $30,000, someone building a new home can have enough hemp blocks shipped to them in around 6 to 8 weeks. While most of the companies manufacturing these blocks are currently in Europe, they are finally coming to the United States. Texas, Missouri, Arizona and New Mexico are in talks to have hemp block factories constructed in the near future. In Pennsylvania, the blocks are already being manufactured.

As Wood Prices Surge 400%, Hemp Homes Are Cheaper, More Efficient, and CO2 Negative

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President Biden was seen test driving the new Ford F-150 electric pick up truck earlier this week in Dearborn Michigan. Companies are racing to produce their electric pick up trucks (Tesla, Ford, General Motors, and Chevy all have plans to release an electric pick up truck).

Will the release of electric pick-ups be the push we need to those who were previously uninterested in electric cars, onboard? The Ford F-150 has been the most popular pickup truck in the U.S for 39 years. It’s one of the most sold cars in many states across the U.S.

When you imagine an electric vehicle driver they are likely not the same type of people you imagine driving a pick up truck. Maybe the new electric ford can change that.

So are the trailer-towing, pickup truck-driving residents of Middle America going to adopt these EVs? It looks like a long shot: Only 2 percent of all cars sold in the U.S. today are electric, and most of those are sold in blue states like California, Washington, and Oregon. 

Will the Ford F-150 Lightning turn Middle America onto EVs?

With a price tag of $39,974 (for the base model), the new electric F-150 is surprisingly cheap for an electric vehicle, let alone an electric pickup.

With the ever-present threat of climate change, many people are constantly talking about the most important thing we can do to cut carbon emissions. New research shows that cycling could be 10 times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero emissions cities.

In 2020, one in 50 new cars was fully electric, globally. Even if all new cars were electric, it would still take an estimated 15-20 years to replace the world’s cars running on fossil fuels.

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The emissions savings from switching to zero-carbon alternatives isn’t enough to make the difference we need in the time we have left to spare. Not to mention, electric cars aren’t completely emissions-free. The materials for the batteries, manufacturing, and the electricity used to run them all produce emissions.

Active traveling on the other-hand (walking and biking) is cheaper and better for both you and the environment. Research has shown that those who walk or cycle have lower carbon footprints than those who don’t even if they just walking and biking on top of motorized travel.

Researchers observed 4,000 people in London, Antwerp, Barcelona, Vienna, Orebro, Rome, and Zurich over a two-year period. Over the two years, participants logged a total of 10,00 travel diary entries documenting all the trips they make each day.

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We also estimate that urban residents who switched from driving to cycling for just one trip per day reduced their carbon footprint by about half a tonne of CO₂ over the course of a year, and save the equivalent emissions of a one-way flight from London to New York. If just one in five urban residents permanently changed their travel behavior in this way over the next few years, we estimate it would cut emissions from all car travel in Europe by about 8%.

Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

People who cycled on a daily basis had 84% lower carbon emissions from their daily travel than those who didn’t. Additionally, if the average person switched from a car to a bike just one day a week, they cut their emissions by a carbon footprint o 3.2kg of CO2. Research showed that emissions from cycling can be 30 times lower than a fossil fuel car, and 10 times lower than an electric car.

A new study compared the carbon emissions of nuclear power versus renewable energy and finds that renewables resulted in a more serious reduction of national carbon emissions. Scientists analyzed data from 123 countries from the years of 1999 to 2014. Not only did nuclear power not show a significant reduction in carbon emissions, it even showed increases in carbon emissions in some developing countries.

The evidence clearly points to nuclear being the least effective of the two broad carbon emissions abatement strategies, and coupled with its tendency not to co-exist well with its renewable alternative, this raises serious doubts about the wisdom of prioritising investment in nuclear over renewable energy…”

Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of energy policy at the University of Sussex

Nuclear power has been sold as a solid, more environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, and there have been advances in nuclear technology since 2014, the last year that this study was examined. In addition to that, many of the nuclear plants analyzed were older and needed more energy to be maintained. Even with those caveats, it’s clear that nuclear power won’t benefit the environment the way a strategy consisting of renewable energies like wind and solar would.

Tesla is planning to make the Twin Dolphin Community in Los Cabos, the first completely off-grid community. The Twin Dolphin community is a 1,400-acre community in Mexico. Tesla will provide batteries and power management to the private community. Tesla plans to set up a similar community in Sonoma County, California next fall.

The community will use fully integrated solar panels, battery energy storage, and software systems to bring reliable clean energy to the whole community. Tesla will also provide clean backup energy for the wider surrounding community.

“We are excited to see our vision of being the first off-the-grid community in Cabo coming to life. We are grateful for the partnership and engagement of Tesla and their technologies, which have made this possible. Our larger vision is that other premier master plan community developers will follow our lead and implement similar projects so that collectively we can help preserve our environment,” 

Tesla plans its first off-grid community | Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

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The project will generate 20 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year. The project will be made up of a central-mount site that takes over 22 acres next to the community’s existing reverse osmosis and desalination plant which provides the community with potable water.

This initiative goes well with other sustainability projects at Twin Dolphin. Currently, they are preserving more than 40,000 thousand native plants, conserving energy through building design to maximize natural cooling, using locally sourced building materials, and using LED lights throughout properties.

The holy grail of clean energy is fusion power. Researchers at MIT have just received $50 million in funding to help make it happen. MIT has joined forces with a startup called Commonwealth Fusion Systems, and together they paln to have a pilot fusion power plant in 15 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjl4T6nISao

If we succeed, the world’s energy systems will be transformed. An entirely new industry may be seeded potentially with New England as its hub.” – Maria Zuber Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor

Nuclear Fusion vs. Nuclear Fission

Nuclear fusion is the energy source that powers the sun, the stars, and hydrogen bombs. Not to be confused with nuclear fission, which is what’s used in nuclear power plants. Fission splits atoms to release energy, and this produces long-lived and deadly radioactive waste products. As of now, there are zero fusion reactors. Nuclear fission isn’t that difficult, but fusion, on the other hand, is very difficult (more on fission and fusion or see the video below).

Most of us don’t want more nuculear power plants. Many argue that nuclear fission is cleaner than the burning of fossil fuels, but there is the issue of the byproduct of radioactive waste and the infamous incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Nuclear fusion occurs when 2 light isotopes are combined to create a single heavier isotope. The fusion process releases helium and almost unfathomable amounts of energy, without the nuclear waste that results from nuclear fission. But efforts to use nuclear fusion have often petered out, leading to the joke that nuclear fusion is the energy of the future — and always will be.

Clean energy brings to mind wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal. Hydro and geothermal are reliable energy, but they are location specific. You either have access to it or you don’t. Another type of clean energy that looks very promising is wave, or ocean energy, but it’s yet to be cost-effectively harnessed. For solar there’s photovoltaic solar energy and solar hot water. And we have wind energy of course. The sun must be shining or the wind must be blowing, so until the battery revolution gets further along, we cannot rely on them as a primary power source. The right breakthroughs in energy storage mean that wind and solar systems are on their way to usurping the dominance of fossil fuels.

But fusion could do better if we can harness it. But the problem with fusion is the extremely high temperatures and pressures involved. We’re talking about star power here. In order to successfully create a fusion reactor, we first need to heat and pressurize plasma to sun-like conditions. Challenging, to say the least. But well worth it if we can pull it off.

This commercial investment success will benefit humanity by providing carbon-free power at scale in time to mitigate the deleterious effects of global warming.” – Maria Zuber

What’s New With Fusion? SPARC

A new superconducting compound dubbed YBCO, for yttrium-barium-copper oxide will be used to coat steel tape, creating much smaller but also much more powerful magnets than are currently available. These magnets should generate four times as strong a magnetic field and tenfold the power output of any existing fusion experiment, the team beleives.

By putting the magnet development up front we think that this gives you a really solid answer in three years, and gives you a great amount of confidence moving forward that you’re giving yourself the best possible chance of answering the key question, which is: Can you make net energy from a magnetically confined plasma?” – Dennis Whyte, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center

Sources:

• MIT joins with private company to make fusion power happen soon – Digital Journal
• MIT Is Building The World’s Most Powerful Superconducting Magnets For an Amazing Cause – Science Alert
• The New Atomic Age Nuclear Fusion And Beyond – Oilprice.com
• MIT Aims To Bring Nuclear Fusion To The Market In 10 Years – WBUR

Elon Musk, the visionary billionaire CEO of Tesla and SolarCity, says that the revolutionary new “Gigafactory” now under construction can serve as a model for transitioning the world to sustainable energy. In an interview in the short film, Before the Flood, he states:

“We actually did the calculations to figure out what it would take to transition the whole world to sustainable energy… and you’d need 100 Giga factories.”

For utilities and grid operators, the technology is designed to enable remote-aggregated control of solar battery systems. I urge anyone reading this who is responsible for managing grid operations, and who is interested in procuring capacity, reactive power, or voltage management services deep in the distribution system to contact us.”

Tesla’s batteries also give energy users the ability to go completely off the grid using clean renewable energy.

With the goal of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and halting climate change, Musk’s company, SolarCity, has revolutionized the rooftop solar industry. It has become the largest supplier of solar power for homes and businesses in the United States. Just a month after Google invested $300 million in the company, SolarCity activated a fund that included an investment from Credit Suisse, which is expected to finance more than $1 billion in commercial solar energy projects.

Businesses and government organizations are able to access SolarCity’s DemandLogic energy storage system. That access enables them to reduce their energy costs by using stored electricity during times of peak demand. Remote communities that are vulnerable to frequent power outages that result in higher energy costs can also access the company’s GridLogic micro-grid service.

Musk is urging other large companies worldwide to invest in building Giga factories of their own. “If the big industrial companies in China, the U.S., and Europe…do this then collectively we can accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. And if the government sets the rules to favor sustainable energy, we can get there really quickly.”

There are a number of things about Tesla’s Gigafactory that are well worth emulating.

The Model

Located in Sparks, Nevada, on Electric Avenue, Tesla’s Gigafactory is one of the largest structures ever built. At approximately 6 million square feet, it covers 126 acres. Multiple levels could expand its square footage to up to 15 million square feet. Employees there call it the “alien dreadnaught.” Musk estimates that by 2020, the factory will house 6,500 employees.

The good news for those employees is that the heavy lifting and transport will be done by mobile robots called automated guided vehicles (AGVs). They navigate by following magnetic tape on the ground and are equipped with sensors and a laser guidance system. Much of the repetitive motion work of battery building will be assisted by robotic arms.

To reduce the environmental impact of excavation and building, the factory is diamond-shaped. It is also aligned with true north to allow daily operations to take full advantage of solar panels and GPS capabilities. The design allows it to be powered entirely by sustainable energy sources. For the first time, all the processes required to build batteries will be in a single factory. Rail cars will transport raw materials straight into one end of the factory, and finished batteries will emerge at the other end.

Musk estimates that by 2020, the factory will be able to produce more lithium-ion batteries than all of the worldwide battery makers combined were able to produce in 2013. Further, he estimates that the price of those batteries will be reduced by approximately 30%. In practical terms, that means that the cost of the eco-friendly Tesla Model 3 will be priced at just $35,000.

In an effort to further encourage the use of solar energy worldwide, in 2015, SolarCity purchased ILIOSS, a company in Mexico that specializes in solar installation for commercial and industrial projects. According to research data, demand for solar power by commercial and industrial interests in Mexico are expected to increase over 1000% by 2020. According to a company spokesperson, “Mexico’s combination of high electricity rates, favorable solar economics, and massive solar resources makes it one of the most promising solar markets in the world.”

South Australian companies have been promised governmental support in transforming the country’s energy infrastructure to include solar energy. Energy storage capability is essential for replacing aging coal and gas plants. Towards that end, Musk recently issued a promise of his own via Twitter, namely that he could build a battery storage farm there within 100 days – or it would be free.

Global Solar Expansion

While the world’s first Gigafactory will be in the United States, there are a number of other countries leading the way in making the transition to solar energy. In 2016, Portugal was the first country to be completely powered by sun, wind, and rain for 107 hours.  Coopérnico has already installed its seventh photovoltaic facility on Portugal’s southern coast.

Germany ranks first in renewable energy, leading the world in solar PV capacity. It has met as much as 78 percent of its daily demand for electricity from renewable energy sources.

China is also a world leader in renewable energy. In 2014, China had the highest installed wind energy capacity and the second highest installed solar PV capacity. These efforts demonstrate China’s commitment to reducing dependence on coal and improving air quality. Sun-drenched Morocco holds the title for the largest solar power plant in the world.

Critics of solar energy point to higher unemployment rates caused by the closure of coal plants. However, with a few economic adjustments, the global transition to sustainable energy, coupled with technological advances such as robotics, may well result in everyone being able to work less and enjoy life more.

Sources & Further Reading:

• Inside Tesla’s Gigafactory: A Crazy Idea Takes Shape In Nevada – Forbes
• Rooftop Solar Boom Underway – Ecowatch
• SolarCity Activates Fund to Finance More Than $1 Billion in Commercial Solar Projects – GlobalNewsWire
• These 10 countries are leading the world in solar energy – Business Insider
• Morocco’s grand dream of energy independence – PRI
• How 11 Countries Are Shifting To Renewable Energy – The Climate Reality