Pulp and paper industry – trends for the future - Biomass as Energy Source: Resources, Systems and Applications - page 230

limited fiber sources, aggressive investments; Western/Nordic Europe - mature market, restruc-
turing underway, technology leadership; North America - mature/declining market, technology
leadership; LatinAmerica - fiber sources available, pulp supplies and investments; Russia - huge
coniferous fiber sources, sizeable market potential, poor infrastructure, investments needed;
India - big potential, limited own capacity, limited fiber sources.
Ingemar Croon (Croon, 2010), a Nestor in the P&P business since many years, says the change
in forest industry is stronger now than ever! This is having several aspects:

• Restructuring - closing or buying complete corporations (e.g. MoDo and Weyerhaeuser) or
merger between very large global companies (like SCA Forest Ind and Holmen, UPM-Mreal,
Aracruz-Votoratim and large Chinese companies).

• New product on new-old machines.

• Biorefineries including energy production, liquor gasification etc.

• Bio combines

• Pellet- bio char- gasification - methanol- biochemical production.

• Ethanol from biomass.

Among others a 600,000 tonne pellet factory has been starting up in Florida 2008 and German
RWE has built an 800,000 tonne pellets plant in Georgia, USA.
Large eucalyptus plantations are found in Brazil and Indonesia. The companies doing these
are accused of non-sustainable actions. Still, more is planted, and in 2009 450,000 ha eucalyptus
was planted only in the sub-state Bahia, with a cycle of 5-7 years compared to 70-100 years in
northern forests like in Scandinavia, Russia and Canada. Eucalyptus has deep roots and can be
grown also in dry areas, if surviving the first tough time after planting.
Russia has 25% of the global fiber resources (SPCI, 2011). New pulp mills are being erected
to increase export of fibers to especially China.
In Thorp (2010) a review of the use of fibers in best way is made. In the paper, the added value
from the US$ 150 value of the pulpwood to final products is calculated. The total value multiplier
from Pulpwood to pulp is 14-33, to power 3, while from slash to biofuel 8-18 and to power 5.
Conversion using different methods is also calculated like hydrolysis, gasification and pyrolysis.
Technology wise several companies like Borregard and Storaenso are starting pilot plants
for nanofibers, where Borregard will use in paint first, while Storaenso for stronger packages
(Karvinen, 2011).
A trend is also to utilize wood as good as possible. If you use wood for building houses for
instance, you both get a renewable building material that binds CO 2 instead of cement that causes
release of large amounts of fossil fuels when utilized for building houses. Antti Lagus at VTT
(Lagus, 2011) reports how to use logs efficiently in a report 2011. Today typically 50% is made
into sawn timber, 10% becomes sawdust and 30% becomes wood chips. This includes 10% as
bark. With better technologies, scanning the stems more timber could be achieved, as knots,
defects could be detected, and sorting can be made with respect to wood quality.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS

• Howdo you think the problemwith competition for virgin fiber between pulp and paper industry

and other usages like as biomass fuel in power plants should be solved?

• Is it the market forces that shall solve the problems and if so, will subsidies for one application

be acceptable in relation to other usages?

• How shall we get enough wood for all the demands we have? Should we start to distribute

fertilizers in the forests on a large scale?
• What is your opinion about what trees to cultivate? Should we have optimal species in mono-
cultures or should we direct forestry towards many different species like in rain forests? Discuss
both advantages and disadvantages with both alternatives.