Page 9 - Green Builder May-June 2017 Issue

www.greenbuildermedia.com/news
Green Building NEWS

Canada Considers
The latest on sustainability and renewable energy

Hemp-Based

Materials

CREDIT: INOVATEUS SOLAR On the rise in the U.S., flax and hemp

panels have good physical properties

From steel to solar. A former Indiana steel mill that that could help northern sales.
underwent an environmental cleanup has become a solar
farm that will power 1,000 homes. ANADIAN HOMES COULD one day use flax and
hemp fibers as key building components, according
Superfund Site to research by a graduate of the University of British
Columbia’s Department of Forestry. Solace Sam-Brew
C says the plants’ residues are technically better than the
particleboard typically used in products like countertops, shelves
Goes Solar and flat-packed furniture.
But don’t start planting seeds in the yard yet. Sam-Brew says the
costs of manufacturing flax and hemp particleboards in Canada are
After more than 30 years, the Kokomo too high to make it a competitive material. Particleboard is held
together by an inexpensive urea-formaldehyde, while flax and hemp
Project’s environmental cleanup is over. products use the pricier pMDI as a stabilizing resin.
That doesn’t mean flex and hemp fibers will never be a building
A option, she notes. Flax and hemp particleboards are lighter than
DECADES-LONG EFFORT to decontaminate and
repurpose a former Kokomo, Ind., steel mill was
wood, and making a lighter product could mean faster production
rates and significant energy and transportation savings, according
completed in May, when the property reopened
to Sam-Brew. Reducing the amount of resin or substituting the plant
as a 21,000-solar panel energy farm.
The one-time Continental Steel factory,
which closed in 1986, was a $66 million U.S. Environmental binder lignin for some of the pMDI would also cut costs.
“Flax and hemp are widely available in Canada, especially in
Protection Agency Superfund cleanup site until 2011. The EPA the west,” Sam-Brew says. “It’s worth considering their viability as
and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management alternative raw materials to wood for particleboard production.”
turned the property over to Kokomo and provided a $100,000 Hemp, a derivative of cannabis, has grown in popularity in the
superfund redevelopment grant to the city to devise a plan to U.S. in recent years, largely due to legalization of marijuana products
reuse the site, now known as the Kokomo Project. in many states. Builders are also recognizing the product’s ability
City officials selected South Bend, Ind.-based Inovateus to absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Solar and Vancouver-headquartered Alterra Power Corp. to when the plant is in hempcrete, or brick-like, form.
develop and manage the farm. The Kokomo Project is capable
of supplying power to 1,000 homes, according to EPA Acting
Superfund Director Margaret Guerriero.
“The [joint effort] really made it possible for us to do what we
needed to do to design the plan at a low cost, but stay within
their covenants and make sure that we’re keeping the site
safe for the community,” says Inovateus Solar Senior Account
Executive Austin Williams. CREDIT: PUSH DESIGN
Indiana Department of Environmental Management
Commissioner Bruno Pigott says he is pleased to see the project
finally come to fruition, because it will “benefit residents for Homegrown housing. The Push House, the first home in the United
States built with hemp, could serve as a template if the plant’s use
generations to come.” as a building material catches on in Canada as expected.

www.greenbuildermedia.com May/June 2017 GREEN BUILDER 7

6-7 GB 0517 News.indd 7 5/25/17 11:02 AM