Bio-based chemicals, produced during the conversion pathway to biofuels, offer more immediate market opportunities for emerging biofuel industries in the Pacific Northwest. The Advanced Hardwood Biofuels Northwest project is furthering research into the sustainability of bio-based chemicals and biofuels produced from poplar trees through an extensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno-Economic Analysis of acetic acid production. An LCA is an invaluable tool for estimating environmental impacts of production processes. Techno-economic modeling studies the dynamics of a project in both technical and economic terms.