12 Jun 2012

Forestry sector gets serious about new bio products from wood

1:52 pm on 12 June 2012

The Bioenergy Association says the forestry sector is getting far more serious about the potential for extracting high value chemicals, biofuels and other new products from wood.

Forest industry umbrella body Woodco has recognised the part that developing new products will play in its 10-year strategy to more than double export revenue to $12 billion.

Bioenergy Association executive officer Brian Cox says that, with the declining demand for paper, large scale wood processors are leading the way in searching for bioproducts, with the declining demand for paper.

He says a conference the association co-hosted last week brought together for the first time the whole range of products that can be obtained from trees.

They include not only bioethanol and biodiesel, but plastics produced from lignin in trees.