Fortress Paper Ltd.

Pulp and paper producer Tembec Inc. announced this week they would invest $190 million to upgrade their specialty cellulose plant in Temiscaming, Quebec. The upgrade will replace three old boilers with a new high-pressure boiler that is designed to burn the waste byproduct of the cellulose manufacturing plant. The change will not only increase the mill’s overall capacity by 5,000 metric tonnes but will also create a new co-generation faci...

As more and more traditional pulp production facilities shut their doors across Canada, one industry insider says the keys to the sector’s survival are “innovation and investment.” In an interview with The Sault Star, Glenn Clifford, who was worked in the Canadian pulp and paper industry for nearly thirty years, cited competitive labour rates on the global stage, concessions, a stronger Canadian dollar, rising hydro rates, shrinking prof...

Two months after the US Department of Energy awarded Ameresco Inc. $795 million to finance the country’s largest biomass cogeneration plant, production began at the South Carolina facility this week. The Savannah River Site Biomass Cogeneration facility will convert biomass to power, turning 385,000 tons of forest residue into 20 megawatts of energy each year. That energy will be used to provide 30 per cent of the electricity needs for the...

A mill in Cloquet, Minnesota that has been producing paper-grade pulp for the last 113 years will begin converting its facility so it can make the switch to producing dissolving pulp. The conversion process won’t begin until next month, but Rick Dwyer, the managing director of the Cloquet mill, says the mill should be fully converted by May 2013. “It’s an extremely fast track. It’s kind of scary how fast, actually,’’ he told the...

"A report published by The Guardian says the high demand for cotton may actually be a threat for future food supply and security and is contributing factor to food shortages." Today, agricultural land covers one quarter of the planet’s surface, which is not all used for growing food.  Of world crop production, 2748.2 million tonnes (2011), only 4% was cotton. In contrast, food crops amount to some 40 million acres and fuel crops to 32 m...