Other than offshoring or outsourcing, what is the de facto means by which manufacturers will take their operations? The following news provides three very different possibilities, each of which concerns distinct and viable possibilities: of trees, titanium and milk.

First up, from The Associated Press, is a story about the potential to create genetically engineered trees. More than three dozen researchers from the U.S., Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden were led by Gerald Tuskan of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to crack the genetic code of trees, which they accomplished. The effort could lead to new varieties of trees better at producing wood, paper and fuel.

The following excerpt provides a depiction of a future filled with genetically grown black cottonwood trees:

Today, the black cottonwood is still considered “wild,” even though it’s grown for lumber and pulp. Fifteen years from now, fully domesticated varieties of the tree, optimally tuned to grow faster and longer, better resist insects and disease, and require less water and nutrients, could be growing like any other crop on tree farms spread across large regions of the United States, researchers said.

Researchers said they also would like to create poplar varieties to soak up even more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lessen the impact of the gas on global warming.

Altering the genetic code of trees to produce outstanding products sounds like a winning idea to me. Best of all, this is a truly global and collaborative effort that could make a positive impact on big business worldwide.

From genetically grown forests, we now move onto a new method of producing titanium, as cited by Manufacturing.net. Dupont and MER Corp. have been awarded $5.7 million by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a new inexpensive, energy-efficient process for making titanium metal powder.

The specifics of the arrangement:

The powder, under heat and pressure, will be used to create strong, lightweight items ranging from armor plating to components for the aerospace, transportation and chemical processing industries. DuPont will supply the titanium dioxide as raw material and be involved in the design and development of a significantly sized system.

Compared to the current 50-year-old process, it is expected that the new process will consume less than half of the energy to convert titanium ore to titanium metal. Depending on the success of the two-year project, DuPont will develop systems to integrate the overall process and the possible development of large-scale commercialization, said the Manufactuing.net article.

While the aforementioned examples are the cr