"Liquid Wood" a Contender To Replace Plastic

Ostracus recommends a Christian Science Monitor piece on the 40-year quest to find a replacement for non-biodegradable plastic. One candidate, written off 20 years back but now developed to the point of practicality, is a formulation based on the lignin found in wood. And it turns out there is another strong environmental reason to put lignin to use in this way: burning it, which is its common fate today, releases the carbon dioxide that trees had sequestered. "Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world's dependence on plastics. But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste — too tough for bacteria to break down — now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. ...[R]esearchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic's main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive."

Comments

Calling this "liquid wood"

[Anonymous Coward]

Is like calling ethanol "liquid grain." There's a big difference between being derived from a given substance and having the properties of that substance.

Not that this isn't nice and all, but picking science fiction-ish titles for things keeps you from being taken seriously.

Re:Calling this "liquid wood"

[X0563511]

The CO2 that comes from plastic, was pulled from the ground. Without us, it would have stayed there, for possibly an extremely long time.

The CO2 that comes from trees, was already in the air, and only was temporarily pulled out into the tree. On the tree's death, the CO2 would have released (as it rotted, or burned, depending).

So, while looking at the small picture, it's no better. But, zooming out to the big picture, it's a world better.

Re:Calling this "liquid wood"

[jamesh]

I think the idea is to build facilities that produce nothing but "liquid wood", so it is a non issue for paper mills.

That sounds likely. I think that while paper mills are reasonably fussy about their source of wood, a 'liquid wood mill' would be far more liberal in what it could take as an input.

On a side note, people here comment that trees rotting releases CO2 into the atmosphere..while true on a small level, most of it ends locked up into biomass...and at geological timescales, into oil...

Don't rotting trees release other gasses too (methane?) that actually have a far higher greenhouse effect than CO2?

Re:Calling this "liquid wood"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it would not have stayed there. Oil is being pumped for a myriad of uses. If it weren't going to be used in plastic production, the competing uses (fuel, chemicals, etc.) would eagerly utilize it.

Claiming that it wouldn't be pumped because we now have an alternative to petroleum-based plastic is an empty argument. It would have *no* impact on the amount of oil being pumped; it would simply alter the distribution of oil to other uses.

Re:Calling this "liquid wood"

[c6gunner]

To be perfectly honest, I'm against biodegradable products in areas that demand environmental resistance. I'd hate to have a biodegradable roof, for example.

Not to bee too pedantic here, but your roof IS biodegradable. The roofs of most modern houses are made of wood. It's the nice non-biodegradable shingles which keep you dry.

Re:Calling this "liquid wood"

[Genda]

You bring up an interesting issue that's often misunderstood or intentionally ignored by people arguing for a cause using CO2 emissions as their only back-up. If your only goal is to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, you need to:
1) Support our managed timberlands
2) Argue that the trees should be felled as soon as they stop producing ounce-for-ounce as much lumber as could be produced on the same footprint by fresh-planted trees
3) Demand that the trees are treated and used as lumber (rather than paper) and land-filled after use. Or, preferably, preserved and land-filled immediately rather than being trucked around for construction.

The carbon is trapped in the wood, sealed to prevent short-term release, and imprisoned in a landfill. Hey, we can put a park on top =).

This is, of course, a stupid plan, but friendly in terms of CO2 emissions. There is a balance there that's often overlooked by tree-huggers and owl-slashers alike.

Anybody who suggests managing global atmospheric carbon starts with managing "Timber" has got a really messed up idea about how the environment works. That is like saying to cure you of cancer we have to kill the tumors, so we're going to give you a pound of arsenic... you will certainly be cured of the cancer.

Let's look at the gaping holes in this thinking;

1. Managed forests are simply timber farms. All semblance to a working ecosystem have been eliminated and they are more sterile than desserts. Worse, because thet grow at most one or two species of "Timber products" which are monoclonal, they are subject to catostrophic failure to pests and diseases. They require heavy use of pesticides, further damaging biodiversity on land and in streams and rivers, and are a flat out environmental disaster.
2. These managed forests are often clearcut and come with extensive roads and heavy machinery, leading to further serious environmental damage due to rivers and stream from silting and soil erosion, and poor land management.
3. Finally the idea of burying wood products in landfills is poorly thought out. We are already running out of landfill space, trying to hide billions of board feet of lumber in them is just not possible. Even if it were, the heat and pressure of landfills would cause the wood to breakdown and begin emitting methane, and greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2. This is simply a very bad plan

So I must totally agree with you on your evaluation of this being a stupid plan. I do however take exception with your portrayal of "Tree Huggers". Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that there are emotional, crunchy granola, earth firsters who would be happy to see homo sapiens disappear tomorrow. I consider these folks an aberation. A religious cult with a seriously warped view of reality. On the other hand. There are scientists, scholars, and a whole raft of thoughtful, intelligent and informed people who are seriously interested in a future with people in it. We have used our world as a toilet for a very long time (look at the margins of any American highway to get the picture I'm painting.) There's an old saying, you don't SH*T where you eat. Sadly, as a species we're learning first hand why that bit of simple logic is so vital. A significant number of young men in this latest generation are now suffering from the effects of psuedo-estrogens in the food and water we consume because there's virtually no control of the tens of thousands of chemicals we've introduced into our environment without so much as a question to the impact those chemicals might have on us and the other life forms on the planet. Atmospheric carbon it a critically important issue, but it points to a much larger problem. Human beings are threaten by their own poor judgement, and lack of ability to accurately guage what is a real threat and what's not. People are worried about sharks at the beach when more people die of lightening strikes every year. However, they have no problem moving into mobile homes built directly

The OPEC cycle

[Vandil X]

I find it amusing that any time someone proposes using an alternative to petroleum-based products, that proposal always gets turned down and slammed for being more expensive, etc. than using petroleum...

...then we get back to petroleum products causing issues (environmental and economic)... and the cycle renews itself.

Curse you OPEC and the lobbyists you have in our elected government.

Re:EPIC FAILURE!

[X0563511]

This weekend was a tentative release date, jackass.

Re:Lignin used to be the same way

[Rhapsody Scarlet]

Yea, these alarmists just like scaring people. The biosphere will evolve to deal with any problems we create today.

Not sure whether this comment was meant seriously or not, but it is pretty much a given that the biosphere will evolve to take care of the mess we've made someday (it's been through worse already). The only question is whether we'll be around to see that happen, or if we'll have all died off before that time.

Re:Lignin used to be the same way

[X0563511]

I'm kind of hoping that we will have removed ourselves from the area before that happens. I like to hope, you know.

Re:Repurposing excess plastic...

[jipn4]

The stuff that's floating around there is much, much harder to extract and use (it's tiny particles suspended in water) than the stuff we are still dumping every day. If we can't even be bothered to recycle all plastics and organics when they are in big trucks, what makes you think it's economical to do it halfway around the world, filtering millions of gallons of water to get at it?

Re:Repurposing excess plastic...

[value_added]

Certainly it could be recycled into new products, too.

That elicits the image of a dog chasing it's tail.

Sure, you can take steps to mitigate problems, but it seems, at least to me, more reasonable to address the root of the problem. Which is too much fucking plastic.

Re:Lignin used to be the same way

[flyingfsck]

Coal wasn't made from trees. Coal was made from the seed pods of ferns - unimaginable quantities of ferns and seed pods, over millions of years. The really interesting thing though is taht coal occurs in multiple seams with millions of years of intervening time. So the tropical rain forest climate that was needed for the ferns to grow, happened multiple times and therefore can happen again.

Ping Pong Balls

[flyingfsck]

Ping Pong Balls are made of celluloid. Plastic made from wood. What is old will be new again...

Re:Yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

UHHHH....using Wikipedia HARDLY represents a substantiation of truth. It was on Slashdot just recetly how a Wiki post (which was later changed) was used a reference material for a "legitimate" newspaper article, which was then cited as the proof for the Wiki article...

Uhh...YOU can update Wiki with any b.s. you imagine or intentional lie you want to perpetrate upon unsuspecting high schoolers that don't know any better than to question the internet source...

There is nothing in that Wiki article that provides PROOF to the theory...it's utter nonsense to suggest that represents truth.

Re: Seed pods of ferns?

[macraig]

Ummm... no. Ferns don't have seed pods. Ferns produce spores, which are far smaller than most seeds (orchid seeds perhaps being an exception).

I rather doubt your statement is true, that petroleum is comprised of nothing but decomposed fern spore. Could you please cite a reasonably authoritative source?