𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗮 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝗱. 𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗮 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗲. 𝗡𝗼, 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗼𝗱

A👏 469-word👏under 3-minute👏 read

The Senate’s version of the “Big Beautiful Bill” is the topic de jure, but I promised not to address it until it became law.

I’ll make one comment: The solar industry has sold its soul hoping to minimize the damage to the IRA.

Not only are they now without soul, in return it got a worse bill that added a last-minute tax on top of a quicker tax-credit phase-out.

The entire effort has an element of poetic justice. And though the final bill might mean massive headwinds for solar and wind, ironically, it might ultimately benefit the long-term climate change effort.

I may expand on these thoughts tomorrow.

But today is the start of a holiday week for many and I want to focus on something positive: Superwood.

Superwood is a gamechanger. Not a potential one, which the cleantech industry is replete with, but a bona fide - this will change the construction industry breakthrough. It’s precisely the type of effort that I believe should be the focus for the climate movement.

Like Superman – Superwood is stronger than steel. At a minimum it will reduce or largely replace steel, which long with cement and chemicals, is one of three hard to abate industries that account for roughly 20-23% of global carbon emissions.

Superwood is the brainchild of Liangbing Hu, who the Wall Street Journal describes as the Willy Wonka of engineered wood. His 2018 paper published in Nature was the genesis of the technology.

But lest you think that the idea remains lab bound, InventWood, the startup that will produce Superwood, plans to shortly fire up a 90,000 square-foot factory. And it’s planning a new facility three times the size.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that even though the product is ready today, replacing steel is a long-term effort. Accomplishing that goal involves much more than a “build it and they will come” approach. It requires changing building codes and convincing builders and architects to make the switch.

That could easily take a decade, if not decades. Fortunately, the success of the product is not dependent on achieving that long-term climate-friendly goal. Inventwood is targeting the siding and potentially decking markets – two applications that require minimal changes to building practices.

In the future, applications may go beyond construction. Superwood boasts similar traits to carbon fiber, but is less brittle. It’s conceivable that someday we may find ourselves again using wooden tennis rackets and flying in wooden planes.

This is a tremendously promising advancement, not only because of Superwood’s potential to reduce our reliance on steel, but because it has profitable applications today. The later is key to ensure that the technology has the staying power to manage through the arduous process of changing how the building industry thinks.

Image: Copyright Inventwood

 #steelindustry #superwood #inventwood #carbonemissions