The
pulp industry and the biofuels boom
In July 2006, Pulp and Paper International
reported on a conference called World Bioenergy 2006. The conference
took place in Sweden, where biofuels provide 25 per cent of Sweden’s
energy and the majority of its heating. “Pulp mills with combined
heat and power plants sending excess energy to district heating
systems are an established part of the country’s infrastructure
and a useful source of extra income for its pulp mills,” notes
Pulp and Paper International.
Several pulp companies are working on
converting pulp mills in the North into biorefineries. In Quebec,
Tembec sells 17 million litres of ethanol a year from its Temiscaming
dissolving pulp mill. Domsjö Fabriker recently spent about US$35
million to convert its dissolving pulp mill at Örnskoldvik in
Sweden into a biorefinery. Two years ago, Etek opened a 10,000
tonnes a year pilot plant in Örnskoldvik to produce ethanol from
wood residues. Next year, the company plans to start work on three
more plants which will produce a total of four million litres
of ethanol a year.
In 2008, a pilot plant at the Växjö
Värnamo Gasification Centre in Sweden will start producing syngas
(a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) from fermented wood
chips. A commercially viable fuel is likely within five to ten
years. Meanwhile, Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s top marketer
of biofuels as well as one of the biggest oil companies in the
world, is working on a process to produce ethanol from wood chips.
In Norway, Norske Skog and energy company
Hydro have set up a joint venture to look at the feasibility of
producing biodiesel from wood. They hope to build a biodiesel
plant in southeast Norway by 2012. In France, a consortium including
Genencor International, Tembec and the University of Bordeaux’s
Pine Institute is working on a three-year study to develop ethanol
from paper pulp.
The demand for biofuels in Europe is
likely to continue increasing. The European Biofuels Directive
rules that 5.75 per cent of transport fuel in Europe should come
from biofuel by 2010. The figure could increase to 20 per cent
by 2020. A biomass action plan at EU level aims to increase the
share of bioenergies to 8 per cent by 2010.
While the pulp industry is happy to
produce biofuels such as ethanol from wood it is less happy when
the wood is used directly, as wood pellets for heating, for example.
In a May 2006 position paper on biofuels, the Confederation of
European Paper Industries (CEPI) complains that “the European
Renewable Energy Policy puts too much focus on the use of wood
as biomass.”
CEPI is complaining because the growth
in the use of wood pellets as biofuel has led to an increase in
wood prices. The increased demand for wood will lead to increased
logging. Sweden already imports wood pellets from Canada. Biofuel
proponents are pushing for an increase in the annual allowable
cut in Sweden. They are also suggesting removing parts of the
tree which are usually left behind to rot - stumpwood and branches.
Urban Bergsten, professor of silviculture at the Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences, argues that forest policy in Sweden
should be reformed to favour increased biofuel production and
to increase growth rates through the use of faster growing species.
More water sucking monocultures, in other words.
Erik Ling of Sveaskog, the state-run
Swedish forest company, suggested at the Bioenergy conference
in Jönköping that production over 80 per cent of Sweden’s forestland
should be increased. The remaining 20 per cent could be converted
to “environmental reserves”. Ling told the Bioenergy conference
that increased growth can be achieved by improved planting and
seeding, maintenance of forest ditches, and increased use of nitrogenous
fertiliser. Ling presumably didn’t point out that increased use
of nitrogenous fertiliser will lead to more nitrous oxide in the
atmosphere. Nitrous oxide has 310 times the global warming power
of carbon dioxide.
The pulp and paper industry in Europe
is “the largest industrial sector using biomass as fuel”, according
to the Confederation of European Paper Industries. Much of this
is because pulp mills burn waste products from the pulping process.
But the pulp and paper industry remains a large consumer of electricity.
CEPI is part of an alliance with other high energy consumers such
as the steel industry and the cement industry which lobbies for
cheaper energy prices. One of the reasons that the industry is
moving to the South is because electricity prices are cheaper
there. Converting pulp mills to biorefineries will also be energy
intensive.
Whether pulp mills are used to produce
pulp or biofuels, the globalised structure of the industry will
remain, as will the fact that it is cheaper to grow the raw material
for pulp in massive industrial tree plantations in Brazil than
it is in Sweden. According to Stora Enso’s figures, trees can
grow more than ten times as fast in Brazil as in Sweden. The price
at the mill gate in Brazil of a cubic metre of wood is less than
half the price it is in Sweden. Pulp production per tonne in Brazil
is one-third as cheap as in Sweden. The same globalised commodity
rules will apply for biofuel production. Converting pulp mills
in the North to biorefineries will drive the expansion of industrial
tree plantations in the South.
By
Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org,
www.chrislang.blogspot.com
