Isaac.Eiland-Hall.com

Link to Article: Strawjet Project

Quote: The desire to use straw as a building material is as old as the agricultural revolution, but straw based products have always suffered from the apparent lack of strength of the plant itself. Previous technologies from straw bale construction to the recent development of compressed straw-board and straw panels have all begun with crushed, chopped straw. The fundamental advance embodied in the Strawjet technology is the use of the whole undamaged plant stem. The compressive strength of straw when loaded parallel with the stem is impressive. The Strawjet system seeks to use that strength by bundling the plant stems into “cables” about 2 inches in diameter.

So as they harvest the fields, they’re creating these continuous cables, which are cut into 8’ lengths.
(although I would assume this could be changed—I can imagine spooling up the cables and transporting them elsewhere for projects that require different lengths)

So far, they are then typically covered in papercrete (concrete made from cement and paper instead of cement and rock, basically, for a lighter substance that can be sprayed onto forms – something my uncle does).

Basically, you end up with a building substance that is very strong and environmentally friendly. Here’s a picture of a wall-segment for testing:

This is potentially revolutionary. It has been pointed out that, if nothing else, it gives farmers a cheap building material for their own use. It can also provide income for something otherwise viewed as waste.

My only question is in regards to how important plowing the straw back under is for sustaining the land. But I trust someone will be thinking about this… Assuming that’s not a major concern, this could well be very revolutionary.

I don’t know the amount of material that could be made, but surely it could replace a non-trivial percentage of the building materials used. Seems like if it caused less reliance on wood, that couldn’t be a bad thing—assuming that would allow for more mature forests, although a cynical point of view might be that fewer forests of any type (natural vs. renewed) would be the result… Still, that’s merely a cynical point of view, and surely this would be a valuable tool to help the environment.

And surely this would help not just the United States, but other countries as well…

I’m no expert, but I don’t see much of a downside, even trying to be pessimistic.