Leonard Opel, the founder and one of the owners of Meadowood Industries, has discovered a way to make a beautiful, durable panel out of rye grass straw without using any formaldehyde or other toxic chemicals to bind the straw. In 1976, Leonard and a partner, Dale Rose, began doing some preliminary research and test-ing to see if rye grass straw could be used to make durable boards.

“We bought ourselves an old clothes dryer, and that’s how we mixed our first batch of straw and sprayed the resin in on it,” recounts Leonard. Dale worked in the local plywood mill, Lebanon Plywood, so he was familiar with the techniques involved and brought in others from the mill to help. “We went down to the plywood mill and they made us a four by four foot sheet in their lab. They really encouraged us to go on with it. So we went up to a plywood and panel equipment sales company in Portland and found an old plywood press in the trash heap. They refurbished it and sold it to us for $21,000, half of the $40,000 plus we had been quoted by others. Then we got an old fertilizer mixer from an outfit over by Corvallis and revamped it so we could filter the fines out of the straw and spray resin in and mix it togeth-er.” With this bootstrapped equipment, Meadowood Industries was in business, officially incorporating in 1977.

Leonard is careful to explain that strawboard is an interior, not exterior product and will not replace wood. “All we’re doing is making our wood products go farther. If they hadn’t come up with particleboard, we’d already be out of timber. Now let’s use the straw.”

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The PATH Concept Home uses innovative building technologies to enhance a home’s flexibility and make it more efficient to build and maintain. Six principles create the foundation for incorporating innovative systems into the Concept Home. PATH has prepared a series of reports which explore technologies and systems that support each principle.

Principle #1: Flexible Floor Plans feature designs and building systems that enable interior spaces to be reconfigured more easily. Download: Concept Home Principles – Flexible Floor Plans (pdf, 416 KB).

Principle #2: Organized and Accessible Systems reduce interdependencies by disentangling mechanicals from each other and separating them from the structure and floor plan. This organizes the systems so they are laid out efficiently and logically, and provides easy access for repairs, upgrades and remodeling. Download: Concept Home Principles – Organized and Accessible Systems (pdf, 663 KB).

Principle #3: Improved Production Processes encompasses management systems, information and communications technology, manufacturing processes,and assembly processes that improve building quality and efficiency while reducing production time. Download: Concept Home Principles – Improved Production Processes (pdf, 567 KB).

Principle #4: Alternative Basic Materials are new advanced materials or those adapted from other industries and applied to home building. Download: Concept Home Principles – Alternative Basic Materials (pdf, 346 KB).

Principle #5: Standardization of Measurements and Component Interfaces simplifies product installation and enhances design flexibility by adopting a standardized approach throughout the design and fabrication of a house. Download: Concept Home Principles – Standardization of Measurements and Component Interfaces (pdf, 203 KB).

Principle #6: Integrated Functions combines systems to increase efficiency, reduce equipment needs and promote multi-functional designs. Download: Concept Home Principles – Integrated Functions (pdf, 224 KB).
AEVIA Reveals the Source

Sustainable affordable housing is also playing a strong role in breathing new life into economically challenged neighborhoods. William Stein, AIA, LEED, principal of New York-based Dattner Architects, presented an affordable housing development located in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., that his firm designed. The benefits that the Atlantic Avenue Apartments (pictured below) presented to the community is reduced air pollution and promoting environmentally friendly materials to the community.
Sponsored by Habitat for Humanity, the Atlantic Avenue Apartments, which consist of three four-story, walk-up buildings, is participating in the Enterprise Foundation’s Green Communities Initiative. Sustainable features include low-flow plumbing fixtures, EnergyStar appliances and fixtures, low-VOC sealants and paints, recycled building materials, and abundant insulation and ventilation.
The residences share a common landscaped garden with sitting and play areas. A rainwater harvesting system will provide irrigation, while low-maintenance and native plants will be set up throughout the space. “Do what you are already doing as a designer, but do it better,” Stein offered.
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When Marin Soljacic first presented the principle, it was unproved. All he could show were his calculations. “I expected that some people would think I was a crackpot,” says Soljacic, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “This was pretty far out.”
A year and a half later, a bulb lit up in an MIT lab—unplugged. Soljacic and his collaborators had demonstrated a new way of coaxing magnetic fields into transferring power over a distance of several meters without dispersing as electromagnetic waves. The demonstration ushered in a technology that might eventually become as pervasive as the gadgets it could power. Laptops, cell phones, iPods, and digital cameras might someday recharge without power cords. With the proliferation of wireless electronics, perhaps it was just a matter of time before power transmission would go wireless, too.
Technologies such as lasers and parabolic antennas can confine the energy of electromagnetic waves in tight beams, that can transfer power. But beams have disadvantages. One problem is that anything that happens to cross a beam’s path may get fried. Soljacic’s wireless power system harnesses oscillating electric and magnetic fields in a novel way. Although it doesn’t radiate energy as a radio antenna does, it transmits power across greater distances than a conventional transformer can.
AEVIA Reveals the Source
Additional Source

Dr. Amir Sharon of Tel Aviv University has discovered a transgenic fungus strong enough to convert even the most resilient plant parts into bioethanol, a chemical used for biofuel. Strengthened with an anti-death gene, this fungus is resistant to harsh conditions such as heat and toxic substances – both of which are released while converting plant biomass into ethanol. As a result, the production of ethanol using this transgenic fungus could be much more efficient than with conventional fungi.
Most bioethanol produced in the US is derived from the edible parts of corn crops. The stalks and leaves, comprised of cellulose and known to scientists as cellulosic biomass, are much harder to convert into ethanol. The cellulose is bound with a chemical called lignin, which causes the plant material to be rigid and difficult to break down.
As a result, some grain crops that could be used for food production are being used for fuel production instead. The prevailing criticism is that there is not enough farmland to produce crops for biofuel and still maintain an adequate supply of food. Sharon’s new fungus, with its capability to convert inedible plant cellulose into ethanol, could have a significant impact on ethanol production.
The unusual hardiness of the fungus may also be important for the food and drug industries, which rely on the process of fermentation. More than 20 drugs, including penicillin, require fungi in the manufacturing process. Sharon says, “Our fungus can grow for much longer in the fermenter – twice as long or more. This can allow for the production of many more fermentation units.” Doubling the efficiency of food and drug manufacture could mean significant cost savings for these industries.
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A tremendous knowledge of tree crops has been amassed by many at great cost in time and energy . . . but is virtually unknown or unaccepted by contemporary farmers.
There is no better example of this unfortunate situation than exists in a review of the life work of J. Russell Smith, tree-man par excellence. Smith launched his study of commercially useless trees in 1910, with a worldwide quest for new varieties. In 1929 he published TREE CROPS—A PERMANENT AGRICULTURE. His valuable tree discoveries were then intensified with more worldwide travel followed by a revised edition of his book in 1954.
As a loyal tree-man, Smith (who, incidentally was professor of economic geography at Columbia University) spoke vehemently against annual row crops. Crops that must build themselves from scratch for each harvest are victims of the climatic uncertainty of short seasons. Tree crops, on the other hand, are not affected by drought to the same degree . . . deep roots enable a tree to accumulate and store moisture.
Smith was repulsed by the fact that four-fifths of everything raised by the American farmer goes to feed animals. He made a good case for a tree crop diet instead, realizing that meat contains 800 calories as compared to nuts which contain 3,200 calories. If animals are to be raised, Smith maintained that they should be allowed to harvest their own crops. This “hogging down” principle is nowadays a major agricultural innovation . . . as when hogs are permitted to harvest corn, soybeans, peanuts, etc. Smith maintained that tree crops can also be harvested directly by animals . . . mulberry, persimmon, oak, chestnut, honey locust, and carob are all excellent stock-food trees.
Andrew Jackson Downing continues to be the tree-crop giant of them all. One of his major works, FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES OF AMERICA, published in 1845, remains today an essential tree crop reference. Resulting from the publication of a number of his important books, Downing’s influence on American fruit tree culture is apparent to this day. He fully remodeled western European fruit growing practices to fit American site and climatic conditions. One contemporary tree crop author found that fruit trees planted in Massachusetts and Michigan during the height of Downing’s influence (18701890) are still standing and bearing fruit. Yet thousands of trees planted in subsequent years (1890-1920) have broken down or died. There is a refreshing simplicity in Downing’s basic principles:
A judicious pruning to modify the form of our standard trees is nearly all that is required in ordinary practice. Every fruit tree, grown in the open orchard or garden as a common standard, should be allowed to take its natural form, the whole efforts of the pruner going no further than to take out all weak and crowded branches.
The tree-men who have qualified the science of pomology are in unanimous agreement on one important aspect: interplanting is a desirable practice. Interplanting makes good sense to the homesteader from a purely economic standpoint. Where peaches, pears and plums are interplanted in apple orchards, revenue from their yields subsidize the apples to production. Rapidly maturing ‘tree crops (like dwarfed varieties) can be alternated with slowly maturing species. Mulberry trees are an excellent choice to interplant in a nut tree orchard . . . they grow rapidly, bear young and are resistant to shade.
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