I read the article, but do not understand what the input material feedstock is. Lab grown plant culture? What is this exactly? What inputs does it need to grow to industrial scales?

If properly managed wood is fully sustainable. It is probably the cheapest "useful" material we have to build with. People really like the look of certain natural woods. It takes virtually no energy or other material to grow trees.

This lab grown alternative seems to lose literally all of the advantages of using real wood while offering no obvious advantages.

You can grow wood, but 3D printing cannot create wood.

I was going to post this but you already posted it LOL

A lot of people have really shit-tier instincts about what is sustainable, what creates harmful waste, what is “bad for the environment,” etc.

Forestry practices for growing and harvesting wood to be used in paper, building, furniture making, etc. are on the whole pretty good throughout most of the world these days! Most chopping down of old growth is for mining or oil extraction or clearing space for cattle ranching or something.

I think it's using byproduct from other wood use i.e. sawdust

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Can you point to any documentation of sustainable logging practices on a large scale? Here in BC we're far from sustainable. The logging companies like to say they're "planting the forests of the future," but I was out there for years and they sure seem to be putting profits ahead of future generations and future ecosystems.

I trust the ecologists and environmental organizations more than I trust what the industry says. Dr. Suzanne Simard's critique of BC's forestry practices aligns with what I saw out there: basically they're planting rows of trees that they think will be worth the most money, but the health of the ecosystems are degrading, which is leading to increased disease and reductions in water retention and resilience, all of which is compounding with climate change to result in increased wild fires.

Also, here in BC they are still cutting old growth forests, despite how little we have left.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208360119

So you have, apparently, issues in British Columbia, according to one person I’ve never heard of, and this is apparently true of tree farming and sustainable logging practices the world over?

It’s in the article: “cells of a flowering plant known as Zinnia elegans”

What? No this is not true. Read the article.

Wood. The original carbon fiber.

but 2x4s will still be the wrong damn size.

No, I said we have issues here, and I asked about documentation about sustainable practices elsewhere.

I've certainly read about unsustainable practices elsewhere, but I've heard of sustainable practices, and it's possible that other places are doing better than Canada. For instance Switzerland has better management from what I've seen and heard, but I think they're the exception not the rule. I'd be happy to learn that sustainable practices are more widespread than I'd realized.

“…from the cells of a flowering plant known as Zinnia elegans..”

No, we can’t. Not even close. This is preliminary research, it’s nowhere near production-ready technology.

I’m so sick of the overinflated headlines on this site

https://forestry.gov.scot/sustainable-forestry

Its the standard across my entire country.

As for the volume, it probably isn't massive though as there are so many parts of the world where wood is far more abundant so just gets cut down.

Worked with a guy who used to work for a major paper company. Trees for them were an agricultural product grown in forests. Over the years they had reduced cutting virgin forests in favor of regrowing trees in already cut areas.

I guarantee you forestry practices in BC are more ecologically sound than in Brazil or India or SE Asia or most of the rest of the world. And they’re right, practices in BC still leave a lot to be desired. Definitely not saying this technology is better but current logging and tree farming techniques are far from sustainable.

Can we set the density for 3D-printed wood?

Ah, yes, I've heard good things about Scotland. You're doing a fair bit of re-wilding too, and lots of renewable energy, yes?

There are indeed signs of hope around the world. I want to see more of it!

I mean this comes after pretty much every tree was felled hundreds of years ago to fuel the industrial revolution and ship building etc.

Hopefully the rest of the world learns before chopping down all their trees.

I’m only cheering if this is scalable

Exactly and not just scallable but profitable. The main problem I see is time needed to 3D print for example cubic meter of wood in a timely manner if it takes too long it’s not scalable

we've never need to cut down trees when alternatives like hemp are better in every single way; we will continue to cut down trees despite this advancement.

I very much want Canada to follow the bit about making things better, while avoiding the bit about letting things get really bad first :-/

There has been progress in Canada, but industry and government are a long way from really listening to the ecologists. I do think there are people in government and industry who care... and others who don't.

In Canada there are official standards, and a commission that checks every mining/extraction operation that might impact biodiversity etc... but the mining/extraction operations almost always get the green light because they promise jobs, and biodiversity keeps declining. Keystone species like the caribou are on the edge of endangered status. Meanwhile, studies show that those companies never create nearly as many jobs as they promise.

Seeing what is "officially" happening in Canada, and then reading the independent reports inspires me to have healthy scepticism about what industry/government presents to the public.

Hemp is not a substitute for hardwood.

Show me the table produced using this method and I'll believe.

Half of timber land in the US is privately owned and in small plots. Most of that is sustainably harvested. Weyerhaeuser is the largest landowner in my state with something like 10% of the land. They clearcut in plots about every 20 years but they do a good job of only doing small bits at a time. There’s plenty of wildlife because they plant scotch pine and not spruce, which does not support a healthy wildlife ecosystem.

Scotland was mostly forest 500 years ago. Sustainable is a relative term when 95% of the trees are already logged off.

Absolutely.

500 years ago was a very different time though. A lot of wood was needed for the witch burning etc.

And the spears! Long ones, twice as long as a man

But how long is that, some men are longer than others....

Your mom been telling stories about me?

hemp isn't the only alternative; i cited it as an example only.