While Greenpeace is using black hat tactics to take out companies that don't submit to their efforts at racketeering, the pro-science community recognizes that renewable wood could be used to replace oil.

Much of te present-day chemical industry is based on oil; products from plastics to detergents and to medication have their origins in oil and its constituents. Yet oil reserves are finite, so scientists have been looking for ways to manufacture these products from sustainable materials, such as wood.

Proof of concept is in one chemical, succinic acid (see box). A new study demonstrated in a comprehensive ecological assessment that succinic acid can be manufactured in a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and safe manner using bacteria. The researchers identified wood or cellulose waste from the forestry and paper industries as their source material of choice.

More cost-effective or more sustainable

The scientists used simulation procedures to compare different manufacturing processes and bacteria, which were optimized in the laboratories at EPFL for manufacture of succinic acid by biotechnological means. Their findings showed that depending on the bacteria and processes used, biotechnological manufacture using wood waste is either significantly cheaper or considerably more eco-friendly than conventional methods based on oil. The researchers considered the total energy required for manufacture, including grey energy (which also covers the indirect energy required to manufacture primary products, infrastructure and waste management), as a measure of the environmental impact.

The scientists calculated that for a specific biotechnological manufacturing method, succinic acid can be manufactured 20% more cheaply with a comparable environmental impact. Using a second method with different bacteria, the environmental impact can be reduced by 28% - with comparable costs to traditional oil-based methods.

Innovation for the paper industry

In order to manufacture succinic acid using bacteria, glucose (grape sugar) is required as the raw material. This can be extracted from sugar beet or sugar cane, and wood is also an option. "Cellulose, found in wood, can be converted to glucose by adding acid," explains Merten Morales, PhD student and lead author of the study. 

The scientists compared the method of manufacture of succinic acid from sugar beet with the process for manufacture from wood waste. In terms of cost effectiveness, environmental impact and safety, the differences are negligible. "If it is possible to use wood waste - in other words, waste from the forestry industry - that is what we should do," says Morales. "Then there is no competition with the food supply chain."

This new method would also interest the paper industry: an alkaline solution containing cellulose is also formed as waste in this sector, but it is not currently recycled. It would be an ideal source of glucose.