Interview with Doc Hudson of ODIN Materials, Inc. on the Future of Wood Production

Hello everyone. Welcome to Conscious Design Podcast. I'm Ian Peterman, your host. And today with me, I have Doc Hudson, founder of Odin Materials, who's working with cannabis, uh, and hemp, hemp products in order to create woods along with other ideas that he has down the line. But welcome to the show. Really great to have you here.

Yeah, it's great to be here. Thank you.

Yeah, so I found, I found you guys online kind of randomly and was very impressed with what you guys are doing. And, and you shared some statistics about hemp-based wood that really surprised me. So why don't you— can you describe a little bit about, you know, what is hemp wood? Because we have It's a plant, so, you know, it's not like— oh, definitely, right? Yeah.

Well, uh, dope wood— dope wood is a dimensional lumber, uh, like 2x4s, 4x4s, 6x6s, meant to, you know, kind of take away the need for cutting down trees so we can make, uh, more— we can make more dope wood with hemp than we, we can make wood with trees. Paper with hemp, it's 4 times. So you can create 4 times the amount of paper with hemp per acre that you can with trees. So, and we'll be able to do probably twice as much wood per acre with hemp than we would with trees.

Right. We talked a little bit about this. It's Faster, so they grow quicker and you can actually harvest quicker. And then you can actually plant, because you're not talking about a giant oak taking up resources, right? Hemp requires a lot less resources soil-wise and in general in order to create the same amount of biomass that you then can turn into a wood, correct?

And, uh, hemp, it's also regenerative. for the soil. So while it's growing, it's helping the soil out. So you could throw it into a crop rotation in between like corn or something, and you could help your soil out for the next crop that you put in. And we could use that biomass and turn that into a ton of lumber.

Right. And how quick— remind me, how quick is the turnaround?

Um, the hemp grows in about 120 days.

Okay.

That's the full length that we would need it to be to make it into wood. And then harvesting it and letting it ret, and, you know, the whole process, it would take like, uh, what we're planning on with the machine is 20 minutes for 10 boards, and then that'll cure, and then we can take that to distributors and, you know, try and get that into like the housing market, right, where it would, where it would help housing prices dramatically.

Yeah, I have, I have family that work in construction, and, uh, yeah, the price of lumber has stopped projects. They're just, they're just holding and waiting, uh, because the pricing Uh, so now your, your product Dopewood, um, tell us a little bit about how— I, I, we talked a little bit about this, so how, how do you make it? You know, it's not— it's a press, you'd have an adhesive, correct? Like, what's that process like?

Um, currently we're working, we're working on R&D for an adhesive because we're trying to make it 100% hemp. Um, right now what we've seen, uh, what we've seen the other companies, they use a soy-based adhesive, but we want to try and make it 100% hemp. That way we're using the entire plant and, you know, we don't have to outsource it to a different plant. Does that make sense?

Is that because you'll— you're— are you able to make the adhesive possibly from part of the plant that you can't turn into wood?

Uh, yeah, like the, uh, flower. The flower has a lot of like resins and oils and stuff that we can— we could even turn the seeds into flour. Like one of the simplest glues you can make is flour and water. So we could make hemp flour and then mix that with water to make a glue. But we want to try that and see if it works. And If it does, then we got a 100% hemp product that is sustainable, renewable, and saves a lot of trees.

So what, what drew you initially to say, hey, I wanna, I wanna take hemp plant and make wood out of it? Like, what's kind of in your, in your decision process? Like, what were your— was the final light bulb like, okay, it checks all the boxes It's, it's the one thing I want to do.

I, I've always been interested in farming and agriculture, and it's always been like an interest to me. But that's one of those kind of industries that you have to grow up in, or I mean, you have to work to get into that industry pretty well. And so we wanted to start our own farm. So we bought a 19-acre farm in Eastern Oregon, and we were like, you know, what's, what's something that we could grow that would be beneficial in as many ways as possible? And being a combat veteran with PTSD and being a firm believer in cannabis, we were like, let's grow hemp. And we can grow the hemp flower for, you know, veterans. But then we had to figure out what we're going to do with the biomass. And a lot of people, they burn it in this area. There's not a whole lot of processors. My neighbor has, uh, like 100,000— 100,000 pounds of hemp biomass just sitting there from 2 seasons ago. So—

Okay.

We had to figure out a way to actually get rid of the biomass without burning because that just takes away from the whole purpose of trying to get the carbon out of the atmosphere.

Right.

So, so I, I got to thinking, and that's when I found, uh, Hempwood, which is in Kentucky, uh, and I, I like their process, but it just, it didn't seem like it was a usable, uh, form of wood that would be much more usable as dimensional lumber rather than a log and then cutting it down and making it into hardwood flooring, which I used to be in hardwood flooring, so that's, that's cool too. But we need dimensional lumber for housing, so.

Right.

So that's what led us to, to, you know, we can use our biomass for lumber rather than burning it. And so we started doing research and now we're on this route.

So it's really exciting, actually. Yeah, so that's, that's really awesome. It seems you've, you've kind of stumbled on an additional— because I've seen there's really cool products out there. Uh, there's like a scrubbing sponge I found that they actually use the leftover agave leaves. in Mexico when they harvest, because they were just burning them before. And so we're like, no, we can actually grind this up and put it into another product. So there's kind of this part we don't think about when we have this growing cannabis and hemp market that we, you know, CBD and all that. But that's just like flower, it's just a small amount.

Yeah.

And there's all this biomass that, yeah, if we're all burning it, that's, that's definitely adding CO2 into the air. That's not really beneficial. So It's almost like you found this kind of untapped resource that people are just throwing away, and you're right, hey, let's use it.

And it's been around for thousands of years. I mean, they found, uh, caves in India, the Ellora Caves in India. There's, uh, 34 hand— man-carved, uh, caves that are lined with hemp plaster. Uh, there's, there's Merovingian bridges from the 6th century in France that have hemp mortar. So I mean, it's proven, and those things are still there, they're still standing.

So that's crazy.

Why not?

Yeah, I would.

And it's better for the environment.

I guess I'll have to do some more research because I did not, I did not know that there were such old uses of hemp as a structural component, not just— yeah, there's obviously people—

there's a—

oh, go ahead.

There's a great book out there, uh, by Jack Herrera called, uh, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. I think that's what it's called. Uh, you should look that up. There's a lot of hemp facts in there.

Nice. So with your With your process, you're, you're, you created a startup, you got, you have a farm, so you're going to produce your own biomass. But it sounds like as part of your strategy to start buying up biomass from other farms in order to actually fully, fully produce.

Correct?

Got it.

Correct. Uh, we're, we're also trying to reignite the, the hemp industry in this area, uh, because in the last In the last couple years, people have stopped growing hemp because they have nowhere to take the biomass. Like, there's no producers in this specific area of Oregon. So we're also trying to kind of build that market up. And then also, I was born and raised in Boise, Idaho, so I kind of want to go back home eventually.

Yeah.

So we're, we're working on getting Idaho to where we can grow hemp. in Idaho and make wood in Idaho as well, which they're currently— it's not legal there.

So, right. That's interesting. You mentioned that people actually stopped growing hemp because they didn't have a good outlet for all the biomass, which is interesting. I wouldn't have thought about that, that as a limitation, but if you are generating a whole bunch of you know, quote unquote trash that you can't do anything with, then it's cost, right? It takes time and effort, right? And burn it, or even if you're burning it, you still have to watch it and make sure it doesn't burn anything else down. Yeah, still, it's still effort to do that.

Yeah, wildfires are better around here. We're surrounded by them, so.

Right.

Yeah, you don't want to burn it, right? Um, And also with hemp, any, any of the like sawdust or any of the trimmings or any of the stuff that we can't put into boards, we can put into hempcrete, or we can put into other hemp materials like hemp composites or—

Okay.

MDF or pressboard, particleboard, all that kind of stuff. And that's It's kind of our, our goal.

Have you— what about hemp textiles? Where does that kind of sit with, with what you're doing? Is that like a completely separate process to get it, um, textile, or is it somewhat—

We may get there eventually. Uh, the hemp is great for textiles. Uh, the word canvas is originated from cannabis. Because they were made with hemp fibers. So, uh, yeah, it's great for textiles, better for clothing than cotton. Uh, right. So that would be another market to get into. Uh, but we're just trying to really keep focus on building materials for now, uh, because we want to get the housing market stable.

Right. Well, and it's a— it's an in-need right now, is an in-need market that needs more— needs more cheap materials that are actually good to use.

And these are all carbon-negative materials too, so they're better for the environment, right?

Because they actually— they reduce the amount of carbon as they're growing rather than increasing it. And even, even with your—

they're just a great material, right? I could talk about hemp all day.

Well, that's perfect. You're in the right— you're in the right industry then. So We talked about a little bit about some of your like future, future plans. So your, your focus is obviously Dopewood. It's regenerative, which is awesome. And that's, you know, it does what it can, but you have some future products that you want to, that you're looking at wanting to develop as part of an ecosystem with this, this space. Absolutely.

Yeah, uh, one of, one of our biggest focuses as a company is, you know, getting the carbon out of the atmosphere. We want to make it easier to breathe for everybody. Hemp sequesters 15 tons of carbon per year per hectare every growing cycle. So I mean, it, it does a lot. And then our next order of business up at bat is our large-scale direct air capture system. And with that, we hope to capture carbon from the air and use an electrolysis process to turn that into carbon fiber materials like CNT or graphene. Just those advanced materials that people are, are needing right now with microchip shortages, all sorts of stuff. And it can be used in structural materials, it can be used batteries, capacitors, everything you can think of. It's a very versatile material, just like hemp. So why not use it to capture all the carbon? Why not use that feedstock of carbon that is in our atmosphere, but viewing it really as a problem and use it as a supply line to create solar panels or batteries or energy products, something that's going to help us get back to more of a net-zero society when it comes to carbon? Pollution and climate change.

And, and there's— we talked a little bit, there's a couple other projects out there that are trying to work on collecting, you know, carbon straight out of the air, but your idea is a little bit different than what you're trying to do.

There are— there, uh, a lot of carbon capture, uh, processes out there, they, they sequester the carbon into the ground, usually into, uh, like an oil deposit that they've already, you know, drained. They'll fill it back up with the carbon that they sequester. And I mean, it works, it sequesters carbon, but it just— it doesn't work good enough. It's not doing enough. It's— and it's turning it back into oil. Uh, it's just, you know, Also giving us more reason to use oil. Why not turn it into something that is brand new? We, I mean, we know that it can be used in so many different ways. Why not use that to make that material instead? Something that's going to help us in the long run rather than, you know, possibly be a problem down the road again.

Right, only to To have to recapture it.

More— it's more of a mitigation type of goal, really.

Right.

We want to fix it and then keep it from becoming a problem again. And with our large-scale direct air capture system, we're hoping to capture at least a gigaton a year of carbon. That's our bottom line. We want to do more than that, but our goal is a gigaton a year. And in order for us to do that, we're going to have to make 107,000 kilograms of carbon fibers, carbon nanofibers per hour for a year.

That's a lot.

That's, that's what our system's designed, uh, for, and that's exactly what I designed it for, is to do that amount of carbon and create that amount of carbon fiber every year. And it's, it's more— it's not as much for the product as it is for the, the actual solution aspect of it. Uh, we're, we're trying, we're trying To get us to that goal of keeping it to 1.5 degrees Celsius or lower. We want to, we want to lower that number. We want to get back to normal temperatures because we're surrounded by smoke over here. Wildfires happen more and more and more every year. So we want to build our forests back up by letting the trees grow and making wood out of them. And then we want to do more to help the forest with sequestering carbon. And that's— we have to. It's just something we have to do.

Right. Well, and that makes— I mean, that's— we definitely have to. And I love the fact that you're starting with hemp, which, you know, it pulls carbon out and then it also regenerates the soil. So it's like literally something that you should be able to crop rotate. Crop rotating with a regular crop. Um, and maybe now that—

now that— Yeah, dude.

Now with you being able to use the biomass, then now it becomes more viable as a crop because now there's— you're actually getting 2 crops out of it. You can go sell the flower off to somebody and then you can take the rest of the plant. And sell it to you, and you can, and you can go make a, make product with it, right? Which is great. You're like creating an extra supply chain out of an existing crop.

Right, and it's, it's such a versatile plant that there's so many different uses for that biomass. We just need to capitalize on it, uh, just I think everybody needs to. It's, it's not really a, I'm gonna do this and make a ton of money, you're gonna be left in the dust. It's more of a, hey, let's all do this because it needs to be done and it's better for us as a whole. We get better materials, better, better air quality, just all around win-win.

Right, it's definitely Definitely creating more options and better options. And if we all did it, you know, if everybody rotated at once, that'd be quite an impact if we did that, if every farm did that once. So that's awesome. And so actually, I love your product, the products you're working on. So with Dimensional Wood, you've created your own machine In order to process the boards, correct? You're, you're creating your own process and machinery?

Right, right. Yeah, we're, we're creating our own, our own press. There isn't one that does exactly what we need it to. There's a lot of steps involved in, in the biomimicry process of making the wood from the fibers. So We need a press that will do all of those steps at once rather than separating it into like 14 different steps. Uh, and that's what's gonna make it to where we can do 10 every 20 minutes and then, and then, you know, uh, let them cure and then they'll be on the shelves within a day. But just because we have a simplified process, smaller wood doesn't take as long to cure. Uh, but yeah, uh, we're just trying to make it more efficient and faster.

Right.

So, and sustainable option to replace lumber.

Right. So compared to other, like, wood, wood-making processes, you're reducing the number of machines and steps basically in order to take it from ground-up biomass into Now we have an actual piece of, piece of wood of any kind.

Right, and, uh, you know, with, with traditional lumber, it takes about 25 years or something for a tree to grow its full length to where they can cut it down into wood. And even then, they have to cut it down, and then they have to let it, you know, rot in a field or a lumberyard. And then it has to go to a mill and be cut down. And basically what we're doing is you cut it down, let it rot in the field, collect it. We'll put it— we'll turn it directly into boards, directly into the output. And it's like 3 steps. It's not, you know—

And do you have—

A to point B to point C to point D. It's just logistically easier as well.

Do you have the same kind of wait time? Because like with wood, you let it dry or you keep it wet, right? It's all— it's a process of not just chop it down and process immediately. Are you able to skip that time? Are you able to kind of almost same-day process it with what you're doing, or do you still need that wait time?

Um, it's Well, the farmers usually will be in control of that because they'll, you know, they'll cut it down, they'll wet it, they'll bale it, and then we'll buy it from them. So when we buy it from the farmers, it's already ready to go, and then we will turn it into lumber because they can, they can just cut it just like hay or straw and let it dry in the field. And then, then it's ready to go.

Got it. So yeah, so it's a very— it's a fast, fast turnaround for you in terms of raw, you know, from the time you chop it, you get to use it. And so the process, you know, using like paper mills— I used to live next to a paper mill and it uses a ton of water. So are you Are you looking to start making paper as well? Is that a potential use? Can you do— what's that kind of process?

Along with like textiles, that might be a future project, but it's mostly just the wood, but because we don't need a whole lot of water to make the wood. Okay, it'll run mostly on electricity. Uh, yeah, and we, we're solely on hydroelectric power here, so, but we hope to add more solar power where we are.

Got it. So the— so you're— because you're doing, you know, lumber, you're able to do much— you don't need the water that you would in order to make paper. Got it. Okay, awesome. Well, this is awesome. I, I really appreciate your time, and this product is, is great. I'm, I'm really happy that you're able to talk about it and share what you're doing. And, uh, yeah, maybe you can start making some graphene sheets at some point and replace other materials. I think we talked about like steel and fiberglass.

Uh, yeah, I'm hoping to make steel panels for like rocket ships. I want to make the first hemp and graphene rocket.

Let's do it! That'd be awesome, right? Whatever we need to do to do that, that would be great. Make a hemp rocket.

Oh yeah, we have plans to make it run on electricity too, so it'll be reusable just like Elon Musk's rockets, but Require a lot less fuel. So it'll be sweet.

Awesome. Perfect. Well, if anybody's looking for, you know, wood made from hemp, definitely keep an eye out for Odin Materials and your, your dope wood as you come online. Um, I guess for people wondering what, what kind of, what's your timeline right now? When do you think you might be able to get it product on the market that you can, you know?

Um, I'm hoping by the end of harvest time this year. Uh, hoping, hoping, hoping. But, uh, it could be early spring next year.

Okay, but you're, you're talking in under 12 months, in under a year, you have a fully, fully marketable— I can go buy some dope wood, build a house, and be there. Awesome, right?

Yeah, perfect. Or at least get on our waitlist.

Exactly.

But we'll definitely be able to start marketing and selling a product.

Awesome. And where, where can people find you most easily? What's the best way to get a hold of you and Odin Materials?

Uh, we have a website, it's odinmaterials.com, or you can send an email to contact odin@odinmaterials.com. That's the easiest way to get a hold of me.

Awesome, perfect. Well, thanks for being on the— on our episode, Doc. I really appreciate your time. I love being able to share this and look forward to seeing you go push it to market.

Definitely. Thank you for having me. It was great explaining it.