Posts

Three Things You Need to Know About Bioproducts

Image
  The world of bioproducts is huge and encompasses many different categories for our items. I would say most people don't know about bioproducts and that some of the things they use daily would be considered bioproducts. There are a few very important things that everyone needs to know about bioproducts. These include the pathways to making them, the actual products that we use, and whether these products are worth it. Learning about these factors may influence the products that you use in your everyday life and maybe change your habits for the better.  I think that it is important to start with how these products are made. There are many different techniques for making these products depending on the outcome that the consumer is looking for. The main ones as seen in the chart are thermochemical conversion, biochemical conversion, and mechanical conversion (lesson 21). Within each of these categories, there are more broken-down techniques to get the product that you want. For examp

Wood: The Pluses, The Minuses, and The Neutrals

Image
If you have read my last post regarding how we know that the wood we use is getting sourced from a reliable place and if the wood is the right material for us this post will help you make that decision. Wood is a wonderful material with thousands of uses and is overall seemingly sustainable for the environment. However, what are the specific advantages, disadvantages, and indifferent ideas about accessing wood in this world?  Let's start this discussion with the advantages of using wood. The first thing about wood that most people know is how versatile it can be. You can use it for furniture, building, fuel, paper, and so many other things (lesson 13). It is also always evolving and there are always new things that you can do with wood. It can be modified to fit the needs of the consumer with products like plywood or fiberboard (lesson 15). This is very good because it can eliminate other products such as cement and steel. Another benefit of wood is its property called carbon neutr

All feedstocks, bio renewables included, have to be sourced from somewhere

Image
Trees are everywhere. They are found in 2.3 billion acres of land throughout the United States in areas such as;  parks, stores, and our front yards, nearly anywhere outside (lesson 9). So are they our key to a sustainable future? Are there really better ways that we can harvest trees? Trees can be a phenomenal sustainable energy source as they are so common. They can be used for items such as housing, furniture, tools, energy, and many other things (lesson 8). The question isn't whether they are useful or not, it is if it's worth it. The manufacturing process of trees into whatever the product is has many steps that should be evaluated to determine their sustainability. This process is heavily dependent on machinery, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. The process also greatly depends on the type of forest the trees are coming from. There are two main types of harvesting lands that trees mainly come from. Natural forests occur without huge amounts of human interaction

Consumption, resources, and the environment: What you need to know.

Image
  Consumption, resources, and the environment: What you need to know. Does the average person know about the carbon cycle? What about the biggest effects that people have on the carbon cycle? I'm here to tell you about that and the correlation between the carbon cycle and renewable resources.  The carbon cycle moves the carbon around our atmosphere (lesson 4).  Some of this movement is positive while others have detrimental effects on our environment. As carbon moves throughout the atmosphere, it is absorbed into the ground, consumed by plants, and pushed out by animals (carbon cycle diagram). This movement is essential to life on earth and without it, the world would not be able to keep a regulated temperature. The more carbon dioxide that gets released into the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise and can ultimately lead to the causes of climate change. These climate change events are what is changing the world as we know it. However, there is a way to limit these impacts. I