PULP & PAPER MAGAZINE: Paper industry must protect its lead status in cellulosic innovation

Despite a wealth of experience in cellulose and bioenergy production, the paper industry may lose its leadership role, unless opportunities are quickly seized

May 2007
By Ben Thorp

Although it is not widely documented, the pulp and paper industry has a wealth of experience related to both liquid and gas fuels, as well as bioenergy¹ production from both biochemical (sugars liberation followed by fermentation) and thermal conversion platforms. However, this experience is not always recognized, begging the question as to why, especially with the prominence of renewable energy discussions in the wake of rising oil prices.

Last year, President Bush began to speak about cellulosic ethanol and the US Department of Energy (DOE) issued its "Section 932 proposal" to fund up to 40% of a limited number of cellulosic ethanol plants meeting four quantifiable criteria. In February of this year, the DOE announced up to $385 million in matching funds for six cellulosic ethanol plants that would have an installed cost exceeding $1.2 billion.

Despite the paper industry's unquestionable access to cellulose and experience with bioenergy production as described in this article, no paper company was chosen as a recipient of these funds. This is not surprising, given that only one made the attempt.

So, is the pulp and paper industry in jeopardy of losing its historical leadership role in a technological area that has been central to its existence? Renewable energy has public and now government support, but the industry must respond to this interest in the future by capitalizing on emerging technologies that complement its experience and strengthen its business model.

While perhaps the most daunting technological challenge the pulp and paper industry has faced, the biorefinery² with its promise of ethanol production may be an alternative to closure of North American pulp and paper facilities. At the very least, it is worthy of serious discussion, as it receiving within some European companies.

The State of Biorefineries in North America

On the biochemical conversion front, the pulp and paper industry has had sugars-based biorefineries on two continents and several countries. The facilities in North America are Georgia Pacific (G-P), Bellingham, WA (the pulp mill was shut down around 2001), and Tembec, Temiscaming, QC. These were traditional softwood sulfite pulp mills that sold their lignin and fermented the six-carbon sugars in the residual liquor to produce ethanol. The five-carbon sugars went with the effluent. (Note: There are at least two mills doing this in Scandinavia, one in South Africa and one in Japan. At one time, there were about 20 mills doing so in Europe.)

Flambeau River Papers, Park Falls, WI, also has a traditional hardwood sulfite pulp mill. The wood is rich in five-carbon sugars, such as xylose, which is extracted off-site from red liquor along with saleable lignin. The xylose is then converted to xylitol, a five-carbon sugar alcohol that is commonly used as a sugar substitute.

Despite success on the biorefinery front, traditional sulfite pulp mills are high cost and are decreasing in number. Because their technology is regarded as "passé," they have not received funds for additional research, so innovation associated with them has been minimal. However, recent activity suggests that hemicellulose sugars can be more efficiently extracted from both the sulfite and kraft liquor cycles than previously thought.

In the area of thermal conversion at pulp and paper facilities, experience is largely concentrated in North America. Weyerhaeuser at New Bern, NC, has had a high-temperature, atmospheric pressure kraft black liquor gasifier running to boost capacity for several years. In addition, two low-temperature gasifiers of identical technology running on carbonate black liquor have been installed. The first one to start up is now commercially supporting the entire mill at Norampac in Trenton, ON. The second one started at G-P in Big Island, VA, and was shut down after two years of commissioning experience. While much has been written about these deployments, the reason why the smaller facility with fewer resources performed better with the same technology has not been fully explained.

Three non-integrated mills in North America have become fossil fuel free: Jackson Paper, Sylva, NC; Gray's Harbor Paper, Hoquiam, WA; and Catalyst Paper, Port Alberni, BC.³ The technology is biomass acquisition and level use of steam during sudden machine outages. These are small, mostly independently-owned mills, adding to the speculation that technology development and implementation pathways for independent vs large corporations are markedly different.

While biomass gasification may be relatively new to pulp and paper, it has been used by other industries in North America for 25 years. Table 1 shows the 20 North American biomass gasifiers commercially operating in industrial applications.⁴ Among these is the biomass gasifier coming on line at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC, where the thermal output will be used for "district heating." Johnson Controls is the developer of this project and must meet the performance criteria.

Projects Gaining Steam

One modern bioenergy project has been announced in pulp and paper: Coastal Paper in Wiggins, MS, will install a biomass gasifier from Intrinergy. Also, Potlatch Corp, with financial help from Winrock International, has developed a comprehensive biorefinery project for the Cypress Bend mill in McGee, AR.⁵ The biomass feed was to be about 2,000 bone dry (bd) tons/day and the output was about 2,300 barrels/day of renewable refinery feedstock, plus about 150,000 pph steam for the mill and about 14 million Btu/hr tail gas for the lime kiln. Because of integration, thermal efficiency was to be as high as others have achieved with larger gas-to-liquids processes. Potlatch did not apply for a DOE Section 932 grant, but is continuing to develop the project.

Flambeau River Papers was the only paper company to submit a proposal in response to DOE's Section 932 grant announcement, with significant help from American Process Inc, TRI, Cleantech Partners, financial backers and others. The output of the proposed project is 500 tons/day AVAP (trademarked American Valued Added Pulping process) softwood sulfite pulp, 440 tons/day of lignin to supply all the needed energy and 20+ million gal/yr of cellulosic ethanol. According to contacts, this project ranked ninth out of 44 initial submissions. While the project did not receive funding, the DOE analysis of strengths and weaknesses used in the Section 932 selection process will be used to strengthen the Flambeau River project and move it forward without DOE funding.

According to a September 2006 release from Independence Renewable Energy Corp, Parsons and Whittemore has constructed a vegetable oil based biodiesel plant co-located with its pulp mill in Claiborne, AL. The synergy was described as shared utilities and increased thermal efficiency for both facilities.

In December of last year, the DOE announced the governor of New York's decision to allocate $25 million for development of cellulosic ethanol facilities. Part of this is a $10.3 million dollar grant to Catalyst Renewables Corp to help fund a 130,000 gal/yr cellulosic ethanol plant pilot line in upstate New York. The project is aimed at extracting hemicellulose from woody portions of biomass going to an existing solid fuel boiler that produces power for the electric utility grid and sells by-product steam to a local facility.

To support energy needs for Domtar's (formerly Weyerhaeuser's) Kamloops Cellulose Fibers mill in British Columbia, work is underway to demonstrate Nexterra Energy Corp's gasification technology, which displaces natural gas in lime kilns at kraft pulp mills with a syngas biofuel produced by gasifying wood residue. The project could save the Kamloops mill millions of dollars, as well as reduce greenhouse emissions. In February, Nexterra Energy Corp announced it had signed a $2.7 million contribution agreement with Sustainable Development Technology Canada to support this demonstration, which will cost a total of $10 million.

Most of the projects listed here as gaining steam are led by smaller or privately owned companies. There is significant progress, but is it sufficient to maintain pulp and paper industry leadership? Many individuals in the US have written articles and documents on the concept of the forest biorefinery and the positive impact it could have on the pulp and paper industry. The typical response from technical and commercial leaders in major US pulp and paper companies is that there is no proven technology available to justify even a pilot line forest biorefinery.

Cutting Edge or Trailing Technology?

Decades of lignocellulosic pulping research have been conducted at many universities in many countries. Until the start of this century, the pulp and paper industry clearly had a dominant lead in the chemistry and physics of lignin separation, cellulose yield and strength optimization, as well as the use of cellulose in products. This experience has been documented in many textbooks and research from technical associations within the pulp and paper industry.

In closing, consider the potential impact of one opportunity. The forest products industry harvested 278 million bd tons of wood in 2003.⁶ That wood contains roughly 90 million tons of hemicellulose. This pathway looks attractive in an AVAP pulping process⁷ that can be adapted to kraft pulping, or more effective alkaline processes can be developed. If the forest products industry can isolate just half or 45 million tons of hemicellulose, it can be fermented to about 20 million tons or six billion gallons of ethanol - about 15% of the US national 35 billion gal/yr goal. This does not require harvesting one additional log. Just think what the true opportunity could be when our large forest biomass resources and the impacts of tree genetics on forest productivity are considered.

Any notion that biorefinery technologies are not worthy of investment was dispelled by the DOE Section 932 awards, along with the notion that companies are unwilling to take large capital risks to pursue this technology. There are now non-pulp and paper industry players who have an opportunity to develop both the technology and commercial skill for the forest biorefinery on a plant scale.

Pulp and paper companies were not included in the awards because their research in biorefineries was not competitive. That speaks volumes to the management allocation of research effort within the North American industry. A key question to ask is: "Has our research been directed at areas that will be valued by society, such as biomass to energy?" Another key question is: "Will other players now take a technical and commercial lead in areas valued by society?" With knowledge doubling every two years, it should not take these players long. Finally, we need to ask, "What actions are required for the pulp and paper industry to maintain a leadership role?"

What appears to be missing in the North America pulp and paper industry is the vision and will to boldly seize the opportunity and the fortitude not to accept excuses for poor performance of demonstrations. In today's world, these missing ingredients make the pulp and paper industry "non-competitive."

In Europe, Stora Enso and Neste Oil announced this past March that they "see the growing biofuel market as a promising and sustainable business opportunity." Stora Enso will construct an $18 million demonstration plant integrated with its Varkaus mill. "Following the development phase, the joint venture will build a full scale commercial production plant at one of Stora Enso's mills," the companies said. In North America, a group of pulp and paper companies has organized a Value Prior to Pulping consortium to develop the information needed to extract hemicelluloses, with the aid of the CleanTech Partners, American Forest and Paper Assn's Agenda 2020 Technology Alliance, DOE and others. However, more and stronger efforts such as these are needed if the pulp and paper industry is to retain its historical leadership and business role in the use of wood.

Continuation of business as usual will surely mean loss of leadership and faster decline. The North American industry must capitalize on these new technologies and do it on a basis that is competitive with others as a way to survive in a global marketplace.

Ben Thorp is a consultant with the Biorefinery Deployment Collaborative. He can be reached at bathorp@comcast.net.

1. In this article, bioenergy is a term referring to production of steam and/or power from biomass. Conventional bioenergy is typically done with solid fuel boilers. Modern bioenergy projects use technology like gasification, which allows displacement of natural gas. Energy may be consumed onsite or shipped small distances.

2. In this article, a biorefinery is a facility that uses distillation or cracking to export energy.

3. Ben Thorp, "Why not become fossil fuel free?" Pulp & Paper, January 2006, p. 56

4. B. A. Thorp, "Historical and Commercial BioRefinery Overview," presentation to the Biorefinery Deployment Collaborative, March 2006

5. Tom Belin, "Demonstration of the Forest Bio-Refinery at the Potlatch, Cypress Bend Mill," 2006 Forum on Energy, May 15-17, 2006, Appleton, WI

6. Eric D. Larson et al, "A Cost-Benefit Assessment of Biomass Gasification Power Generation in the Pulp and Paper Industry," Preface, page xiii

7. Theodora Retsina and Vesa Pylkkanen, "Back to the biorefinery - a novel approach to boost mill profits," Paper 360, February 2007

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