MedicalNeed
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Hemp is looking pretty snazzy these days. Put aside old visions of burlap-like shirts that belong with hacky sacks. New hemp tech is greening electric vehicles and even house construction.
The "Hemp House" in Asheville, North Carolina, looks so far from a hippie haven it could have been ripped from the pages of Dwell. Anthony Brenner of Push Design led the house construction for Russ Martin and Karon Korp. CNN recently featured it in a segment, showing walls made from "hempcrete," a material made out of hemp, lime, and water.
Hemp is a hardy plant that grows quickly, and hempcrete is an excellent insulator. According to CNN, the 3,400 square foot house's recent month cooling bill was $100. The house wasn't cheap to construct -- at $133 per square foot the total is just under half a million bucks. But it looks like a million.
Meanwhile, hemp is getting a home in cars, too. I know researchers at Ford have been working hard on biodegradable car parts by testing out wheat waste, soy and other renewables, but Canadian EV maker Motive Industries Inc. swapped out glass composites for hemp. Oh the irony: Henry Ford used hemp fiber and resin on an early vehicle, but it's now illegal to grow hemp here. Naturally, legal hemp-cultivating Canada is pulling ahead with this kind of green tech.
Gizmag's Darren Quick explains that Motive Industries' four-passenger "Kestrel" vehicle has a body made from hemp mats. Mat maker Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures didn't describe exactly what went into the EV body besides hemp, but the biomaterial is described as "impact resistant" as well as lighter and cheaper than glass. Motive Industries calls Kestrel Canada's first bio-composite bodied electric car, and it will debut in September at the Vancouver EV Conference and Trade Show.
You can blame this on the move to Colorado, but I can't believe we're going to let Canada beat us on this tech front. Hemp clearly has incredibly useful properties for new green materials, and it's a hardy crop. We even import finished hemp products. Maybe it's time to give industrial hemp a green light stateside.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History
Author: Alyssa Danigelis
Contact: Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History
Copyright: 2010 Discovery Communications, LLC.
Website:Hemp Tech Sneaks Over the Border : Discovery News
The "Hemp House" in Asheville, North Carolina, looks so far from a hippie haven it could have been ripped from the pages of Dwell. Anthony Brenner of Push Design led the house construction for Russ Martin and Karon Korp. CNN recently featured it in a segment, showing walls made from "hempcrete," a material made out of hemp, lime, and water.
Hemp is a hardy plant that grows quickly, and hempcrete is an excellent insulator. According to CNN, the 3,400 square foot house's recent month cooling bill was $100. The house wasn't cheap to construct -- at $133 per square foot the total is just under half a million bucks. But it looks like a million.
Meanwhile, hemp is getting a home in cars, too. I know researchers at Ford have been working hard on biodegradable car parts by testing out wheat waste, soy and other renewables, but Canadian EV maker Motive Industries Inc. swapped out glass composites for hemp. Oh the irony: Henry Ford used hemp fiber and resin on an early vehicle, but it's now illegal to grow hemp here. Naturally, legal hemp-cultivating Canada is pulling ahead with this kind of green tech.
Gizmag's Darren Quick explains that Motive Industries' four-passenger "Kestrel" vehicle has a body made from hemp mats. Mat maker Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures didn't describe exactly what went into the EV body besides hemp, but the biomaterial is described as "impact resistant" as well as lighter and cheaper than glass. Motive Industries calls Kestrel Canada's first bio-composite bodied electric car, and it will debut in September at the Vancouver EV Conference and Trade Show.
You can blame this on the move to Colorado, but I can't believe we're going to let Canada beat us on this tech front. Hemp clearly has incredibly useful properties for new green materials, and it's a hardy crop. We even import finished hemp products. Maybe it's time to give industrial hemp a green light stateside.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History
Author: Alyssa Danigelis
Contact: Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History
Copyright: 2010 Discovery Communications, LLC.
Website:Hemp Tech Sneaks Over the Border : Discovery News
