Artificial Wood Chips/Smoke for smoking meat

I'm confused. You don't want fake smoke but you don't want to use wood? Are you asking for a synthetic substance you can burn that will not be worse for the environment than burning wood?

First of all- burning wood is not bad for the environment- that carbon has not been sequestered and so it would be released into the atmosphere anyway when the wood decayed.

Secondly- mesquite is a cancerous weed here in Texas and I encourage everyone to smoke with it to restore the damaged ecosystem.

Thirdly- You can't fake the taste of smoking with wood. That's the point. Even liquid smoke is actually made by distilling real smoke.

(I originally posted a comment and decided to modify it into an answer.)

i made a smoked salmon recently that used tea leaves (from tea bags, specifically chai and a black tea with citrus), and it was very subtle and awesome. highly recommended. i used, i believe, 3 tea bags total, plus 2T of brown sugar and 2T of white rice in a lightly folded foil packet.

I believe that cooking on a plank of wet wood will give you some of the flavor of smoking without actually burning the wood. But I don't think the flavor will be nearly as strong.

it is possible to smoke foods with products other than traditional wood chips. however i have achieved best results by mixing with wood. i like ginger (sliced the same size as a wood chip), star anise, cinnamon stick (broken to roughly the same size as a wood chip), garlic, thyme (soaked in water), tea (i enjoy using jasmine tea), rosemary, peppercorns (soaked in water), citrus peel, chips from wine casks or bourbon cask. any type of woody plant stalk will do as well.

There are many different woods used for smoking throughout the world, each giving a characteristic flavor, intensity, and color to the foods that are smoked with it. You are not going to get the "hickory smoked" taste by using anything but hickory. Here is the list of common smoking woods given by Nathan Myhrvold in Modernist Cuisine Vol 2:

• grapevine
• straw
• ash, elm, hornbeam, chestnut
• tea leaves
• alder
• apple
• cherry, peach
• corncob
• heather (dried)
• mahogany
• thyme, marjoram, or sage (dried)
• walnut
• linden
• birch, poplar, willow
• hickory
• pecan
• laurel
• rosemary, dried
• beech
• juniper
• camphor laurel
• oak
• mesquite

Additionally, in some areas where vegetation is less available locals use dried manure or peat to smoke meat.

Other sources:

http://www.deejayssmokepit.net/Woods.htm

The best alternative to wood chips is a new product called Smokin-os and they are sold on Amazon. They give great smoke and are very simple to use. All you do is preheat your grill and put one on the grill surface where you put your food. They are made of fruitwood trimmings that are normally piled and burned. The trimmings are ground up and then extruded under high heat and pressure putting the wood back together denser (up to 2 times more dense) than it was in its natural state. Therefore it takes less of it to produce a lot of rich smoke. Its the only product that I'm aware of in the market. This process is done using heat and extreme pressure to bind the wood back together using the woods natural resins.