Hemp material 'may aid green homes'

[grace]

A form of cannabis could be used to build carbon-neutral homes of the future, university researchers have said.

 

A consortium, led by the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials at the University of Bath, has embarked on a housing project to develop the use of construction materials made of hemp.

 

Hemp-lime is a lightweight building material made of fibres from the fast-growing cannabis plant, bound together using a lime-based adhesive.

 

The hemp plant stores carbon during its growth and this, combined with the low carbon footprint of lime and its efficient insulating properties, gives the material a "better than zero carbon" footprint, researchers said.

 

Professor Pete Walker, director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, said: "We will be looking at the feasibility of using hemp-lime in place of traditional materials, so that they can be used widely in the building industry.

 

"We will be measuring the properties of lime-hemp materials, such as their strength and durability, as well as the energy efficiency of buildings made of these materials.

 

"Using renewable crops to make building materials makes real sense - it only takes an area the size of a rugby pitch four months to grow enough hemp to build a typical three bedroom house."

 

The three-year project, worth almost £750,000, will collect scientific and engineering data about this new material so it can be more widely used in the UK for building homes.

 

The project brings together a team of nine partners: BRE Ltd, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studio architects, Hanson Cement, Hemcore, Lhoist UK, Lime Technology, National Non-Food Crops Centre, University of Bath and Wates Living Space.

 

As part of the project the University of Bath received a research grant of £391,000 from the Renewable Materials LINK programme run by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

 

Date: 9 April 2009

Source: The Press Association @ http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/a...VlS6W2G0giVlIBg

Copyright: The Press Association

[Indycar]

For quite some time I've believed Australia should be at the forefront of the hemp industry, when come to research and development of building supplies for the industry.

 

We've got all the boxes ticked to do it, bar the dumbarse laws holding us back. Well done to the sellout pollies, for another opportunity missed..

 

[need4weed3]

our governments of "DEMOCRACY"

are in the business of using our

dollars to provide finance to private

companies who in turn are provided

with a liscence to manufacture and restict the

sale of a product so they in turn

have us subsidies them for selling it to us

at cheaper rate......