Return to Green

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Earlier this week I attended the "Workshop on Advanced Green Composites" at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). With distinguished speakers such as Dr. Anil Netravali from Cornell University and tongue-tangling topics such as "Ionic Liquid in Processing Multifunctional Cellulose Fiber and Biocomposites" you might think that this workshop promoted new, cutting edge technologies. In one sense, it did; but at the same time I was struck by how many speakers reminded us that we are rediscovering old – in some cases, very old – technologies. As one speaker quipped, the first green composite building materials utilized by humans probably were straw-and-mud adobe bricks around 3,500 BC.

Another speaker showed a dramatic old picture of Henry Ford literally taking an axe to one of his famous automobiles. The photo showed the axe rebounding from the sleek, black trunk panel. But didn’t they make cars out of much heavier and sturdier metals in those days? Turns out the sleek, black panel that proved impervious to axe blows was a biocomposite, and Ford was an early advocate of such materials. Indeed, Ford made a whole car out of such green materials. This event is described by David Morris in a newsletter of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance:

On August 14, 1941, at the 15th Annual Dearborn Michigan Homecoming Day celebration, Henry Ford unveiled his biological car. Seventy percent of the body of the cream-colored automobile consisted of a mat of long and short fibers from field straw, cotton linters, hemp, flax, ramie and slash pine. The other 30 percent consisted of a filler of soymeal and a liquid bioresin.

The timing gears, horn buttons, gearshift knobs, door handles and accelerator pedals were derived from soybeans. The tires were made from goldenrods bred by Ford’s close friend Thomas Edison. The gas tank contained a blend: about 85 percent gasoline and about 15 percent corn-derived ethanol.

Unfortunately, World War II derailed this early sustainable green movement and helped ensure that the "modern" automobile would be solidly metal- and petrochemical-based. Here and now, as speaker after speaker at the conference reminded us, it is often a struggle to re-integrate individual components made of biocomposites into our unsustainable, energy-intensive buildings and machines.

However, as the slides of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings and topics such as "Beans to Machines" revealed, there are many positive trends indicating a return to green. New federal legislation calling for increased fuel and energy efficiency, as well as rising oil prices, are spurring much-needed (re-)developments in green composites. In the words of wise old Solomon: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1).