You cannot, he notes, do that with a steel mill or an automotive company or a wood-pulp mill.

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The next phase is to scale up the manufacturing process, with the aim of making the material rather as you would convert wood-pulp to newsprint.

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After a hurricane, for example, large trees that are snapped or sheared often become pulp wood rather than saw-timber, reducing their value by two-thirds or more.

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He admits that it is not simple to pull the sugars out of non-food material like pulp or wood waste, but says that even factoring in the extraction process, the final cost should be lower than using corn starch or sugar cane, both of which are much higher-priced commodities.

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It produces pulp from raw wood, but also boasts state-of-the-art machines to make the speciality papers that constitute most of its production.

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