We are a family owned business that has been providing services and products to the construction industry since 1978.
Combined, our family has over 90 years of experience in the building materials industry. We service the requirements of professional industry buyers, residential and commercial contractors, home owners and hobbyists.
You can’t compareApplesandPine Cones! …or can you?
I have worked in the forestry industry most of my life. Understanding that trees remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is a given with me. Pine trees, on average remove 50 pounds per tree per year during their first 40 years. That equals 17 tons per acre per year on average. This greenhouse gas ends up in our homes and businesses in the form of construction materials.
Recently I worked with a company on providing construction material for an apple orchard. This company will plant 37,000 trees on 48 acres. They expect 90% will make apple production for 22 years. Each year, each acre will sequester 22 tons of green house gases. Most of this greenhouse gas ends up in our food supply.
That is1,056 tonsper year – for 22 years – not costing anything to sequester that gas, but actually making a profit – that they will have to pay taxes on, by the way.
Do the math – that 48 acres willREMOVEthe greenhouse gas foot print for 62 Americans each year.
Last year 28 people planted 80,000,000 pine trees in Texas alone on private land.
Those80 Millionpine trees will remove2 Milliontons of greenhouse gas each year for the next 40 years.
That effort willREMOVEthe annual greenhouse gas foot print for 117,647 Texans!
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How ’bout them apples?
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Plant a TREE, Build with TREES (eat apples), Save the WORLD REPEAT!!!
The Petra Nova carbon capturing plant came online in 2016.
It captures and ultimately sequesters 1.6 Million tons of greenhouse gas annually from a Houston based power plant that is strategically located next door. The liquefied greenhouse gas is then piped 80 miles south and used in an oil field recovering program to aid in the increase of oil production. This is a very positive investment for our environment. Our Government contributed $190 Million tax dollars to help fund the construction of the project.
$190 million to remove1.6 million tons
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What if we invested $190 Million tax dollars in replanting our forests? The US Forest Service estimates that 300 million acres of US forest lands have not been replanted. $190 Million tax dollars would replant 640,000 acres of forest lands. One acre of forest land removes 17.5 tons of greenhouse gasses, per acre, per year. If that size investment was invested in replanting our U.S. forests lands, then 11.2 million tons of greenhouse gas would be removed annually.
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$190 million to remove11.2 million tons
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Additionally, there are no operational costs or environmental impacts. Such as a toxic waste that needs to be disposed of. Instead, we have a forest……………..
The climbing walls, zip lines, and tree houses reach up some 30′ in the air.
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All are enough to make us want to play all day. There is something else going on as well.
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In the wooden structures there are over 21,000 lbs of green house gases. Green house gases that were sequestered as the trees were growing. Now that they are part of the permanent structure, we can all breathe a little easier.
These 8 piling were used on a Texas Department of Highways job. They were driven to a load rating of 95 tons.
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They contain over 12,000 lbs of green house gasses. This green house gas will never be seen again.
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If these trees were not used in this manner, then the gases contained in these trees would be released back into the atmosphere.
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For each concrete piling used by the Texas Department of Highways that is replaced by a wooden piling an additional 1,500 lbs of green house gasses is sequestered —
Faulkner Park in Tyler, Texas needed a bridge to access an area of the park’s woodland trails.
The bridge had to be large enough to allow for small vehicle usage and yet built in such a way as to not damage the woodland habitat.
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So, can you see it? Built in two days – with small equipment – and able to hold up 40,000 lbs. The treated wood used also contains 14,000 pounds of green house gases that will never be seen again. I think Tyler has earned aBIG STAR.
I am fortunate to work in an industry that removes green-house gases from our atmosphere. Every tree removes, on average, 50 pounds of green-house gases from the atmosphere per year until it reaches the age of 40.
Then, unless it is harvested, it will begin to give up more green-house gases than it removes. It will ultimately release all the green-house gases that it had stored up either by FIRE or DECAY.
Unless,
by taking a tress when harvested and building a permanent structure with it, those captured green-house gases remain sequestered. Concrete, steel, and plastic building products do not contain any green-house gases. In fact, all products made from concrete, steel and plastic contribute to the green-house gas inventory in our atmosphere. In Texas alone, more than 80,000,000 trees were planted last year by my industry. On average, that one year planting will remove 1 million tons or green-house gasses per year until year 40.
“Plant a tree, build with trees, save the world —– REPEAT!“
I went back home to Brownsville, TX last week for my 40 year high school reunion. I decided to look around and see what else was still around after 40 years. My father had been a developer in Brownsville and had built many apartment complexes.
The 40 year time frame also reminded me of something concerning about the industry I work in. On average, 40 years is the age in which a forest will start giving up more green house gases than it removes from the atmosphere.
The attached pic is of one of the apartment complexes still providing housing after 40 years of use. It contains over400,000 lbsof green house gases.
The second attached pic is of a planted pine plantation. When it reaches the age of 40, it will be harvested to build the next generation of needed housing.
This forest will not beburnedor left todieanddecay. The green house gases each tree has successfully sequestered during its life cycle will remain in place. The forest will become homes, hospictals, bridges, piers, electrical lines, and playgrounds. This is the sequestering technology that does not need tax dollas for support…It needs community support.
Plant a tree, Grow a tree, Build with trees, Save the world —
I was driving down Texas Highway 59 this week and came up on a new guardrail system being installed.I drove a little further into the next county and came up another guardrail system.
They look the same.
– Very simple construction.
One: Used wooden posts The Other: Used steel posts
Each wooden post removes 26 lbs of green house gases from our environment. Each steal post adds 34 lbs of green house gases to our environment.The State of Texas uses over 300,000 of these posts each year.
Sooooo –
We can either remove 7,800,000 lbs of green house gases each year from our atmosphere
Orrrrrrr –
We can add 10,200,000 lbs of green house gases each year to our atmosphere—–SIMPLE!
