Embodied Energy of Wood

Embodied energy of lumber - 8.5MJ/kg.

Note that diesel has 36 MJ/kg. Thus - each kg of lumber contains about 250 grams of diesel used in its production!

Each wall panel of the Seed Eco-Home weighs roughly 110 lb = 4*13lb for studs - and a sheet of ply 60 lb - 3/4 total or about 1/2+3/8. Thus we have 110 or so lb. This is about 12 kg of diesel! Entire house walls (48 modules) thus have 576 gallons of diesel! About 20GJ.

Compare to CEBs - 1 gallon per hour - or 6*60=360 block per hour. Each 1' thick 4x8 foot wall section has 192 block or 1/2 gallon of diesel. 48 sections for SEH 1000 sf model thus have 24 gallons of fuel. Under 1 GJ. If we consider another tractor for soil handling, we are at 2 GJ.