Due to the international economic crisis, Brazilian pulp and paper exports fell this year.  Despite predictions that the market downturn will continue, the Brazilian pulp and paper industry continues to invest in research and development of new forest-based products and uses; thus, reducing impacts from future crises in the pulp market.

Elizabeth Carvalhaes, President of the  Brazilian Pulp and Paper Association (Bracelpa), major producers are already working on opening the range of forest products. “The investment of US$ 22 billion to $ 24 billion projected by this sector is not dedicated solely to the supply of pulp, but to all uses of wood,” she emphasized.

Lairton Leonardi, ABTCP President, highlighted that the pulp and paper sector is building its vision of the future based on biorefinery studies and their multiple applications.  Leonardi  stated, “today we are facing challenges, but our vision of the future of this sector calls for development and differentiation.”

Source: ABTCP: International Crisis impacts the Pulp and Paper Market, but Brazil Maintains Its Investments in Innovation

Pulp and paper producer Tembec Inc. has officially inaugurated a new anaerobic treatment facility which will produce methane biogas and greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels at its high-yield pulp mill in Matane, Québec.

A new FPAC report was released on this phase of the government’s ongoing strategic support for the industry.  FPAC found that the program has funded 98 projects and supported 14,000 jobs.

“The investments from this program truly improved the environmental performance of Canada’s pulp and paper sector and had extraordinary social and economic benefits for forest communities as well,” said David Lindsay, president and CEO of FPAC.

The policy has been aimed at assisting pulp and paper mills that agreed to use targeted capital investments to support Canadian jobs and improve their green technologies and environmental performance.

FPAC described the policy as a response to a U.S. multibillion-dollar subsidy for pulp and paper mills under the black liquor tax credit that “unfairly hit Canadian mills already reeling from the global recession and a high Canadian dollar.”

David Lindsay stated “Canada got it right”. The program has helped drive environmental improvements and allowed the Canadian industry to leverage its strong green credentials in the international marketplace.

The Pollia condensata plant (sometimes called the marble berry)- a species that grows wild the forests of Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania and other African countries– produces a berry that is iridescent blue and metallic, a colour that Wired Magazine “the most intense colour in the biological world [that] literally outshines any other plant or animal substance in the world.”

“[The plant’s berries are] 10 times more intense and bright than any colour achieved with a pigment,” said Dr. Silvia Vignolini, a physicist at the University of Cambridge who led the study with plant scientist Beverley Glover.  The marble berry has been found by scientists to be the “brightest biological substance” in nature.

The biological foundation of most green plants, cellulose is very common in nature; thus, inexpensive to obtain and process. Its astonishing brightness, low cost, and non-toxicity could make it an effective replacement for conventional pigments.

The cells of this African fruit have walls made of tightly coiled cellulose strands that are excellent for reflecting light. Unlike pigments, structural biological colours do not fade over time because they are not broken down by absorbing light. Structural colours have an immense staying power, some remaining vivid in the fossils of beetles that lived 50 million years ago.

A colour similar to the Pollia condensate berries exist in the wings of the morpho butterfly but these berries, according to physicist Ullrich Steiner, produce an even stronger colour. Samples of the fruit in plant collections dating back to the 19th century have not lost any shine or intensity.

Silvia Vignolini and Beverley Glover have determined that the powerful, non-fading “structural color” of Pollia condensata could have widespread applications in a variety of industries. Food dyes, makeup, car paint, colored security features in currency, and many other products could be enhanced by this discovery. Silvia Vignolini stated: “edible, cellulose-based nanostructures with structural color can be used as substitutes for toxic dyes and colorants in food”. Dr. Vignolini also stated that “the paper industry is already set up to extract and use cellulose and its processes could also be adapted for security labeling or cosmetics. Cellulose-based structures have a really strong optical response and are completely inert in the human body”.

SOURCES:

The Times of Malta: “A Colour That Never Fades”

Wired Magazine: “Super Blue Berry: The Natural World’s Most Intense Color”

Reuters: “Scientists find out how nature makes colors that never fade”

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The project creates new economic opportunities for Ontario’s forestry sector, which will provide the biomass fuel to the plant. The project will create about 200 construction jobs and will be able to deliver more than 200 megawatts of clean, renewable power by December 2014.

Ontario Minister of Energy Chris Bentley said that the project will help eliminate the use of coal and construct a modern, reliable energy system. ”By reducing harmful emissions we are ensuring a cleaner, healthier Ontario for current and future generations,” he added.

Ontario Minister of Environment Jim Bradley said, “Ending coal-fired electricity generation in Ontario is the largest reduction of greenhouse gases in North America.”

Cost to convert the generating station to biomass is estimated at $170 million. The project includes the construction of a fuel storage and handling system that can process 90,000 tonnes of biomass fuel annually, as well as modifications to provide peak capacity.

Since 2003, the Ontario government has reduced its use of coal by 90 per cent by shutting down eleven of the province’s nineteen coal-fired power facilities. In the past nine years more than 10,000 megawatts of clean energy (enough to power two million homes in the province) has been brought online. Officials say 80 per cent of the province’s energy is now derived from “clean energy sources such as water, nuclear and renewables.”

SOURCE: Biomass Magazine, Canadian Manufacturing.

The northern Québec mill operated for nearly 40 years until it was shut down in 2005 by Domtar, leading to the loss of 700 jobs in the small region that was home to only 3000.

The mill sat idle until earlier this year when Vancouver-based Fortress Paper Ltd. purchased the facility with the intention of converting it to dissolving pulp mill.

Dissolving pulp – also called specialty cellulose – is predominately used in the textile industry to make products such as rayon. Rayon is a product in high demand across the globe, particularly since the demand for cotton continues to grow while production shrinks.

According to a press release issued by Fortress, once the necessary renovations are completed on site in Lebel-sur-Quévillon the mill will be able to produce approximately 236,000 air dried metric tonnes of dissolving pulp per year.

The conversion process will also include the re-starting of a 30 megawatt cogeneration facility at the Lebel-sur-Quévillon site, and the construction of an addition cogeneration project that will provide up to 50 megawatts of power for the facility. Much like the facility Fortress owns in Thurso, Québec, the intention is that some of this power will be used to run the mill and some will be sold to the provincial power grid pending an agreement with Hydro-Québec.

SOURCES:

Fortress Paper: “Fortress Paper Announces Acquisition of Lebel-Sur-Quévillon Pulp Mill Assets”

The Globe & Mail: “Fortress Paper To Relaunch Domtar Plant As Rayon-Pulp Mill”


Radio-Canada: “Lebel-Sur-Quévillon, une communauté forestière en quête d’espoir”

The Northern Québec town has a long history of pulp and paper manufacturing. In fact, it was founded in the mid 1940s by loggers who arrived in the remote area to send logs down the Bell River. The industry really began to boom when a logging contractor named Jean-Baptiste Lebel opened a sawmill in the nearby hamlet of Rapide-des-Cèdres. Interested in capitalizing on a huge forest of black spruce that extended thousands of square kilometres, Lebel undertook the challenge of “building modern facilities in the heart of this great forest” where he could “process
the raw material on site.”

In 1963, Domtar began drafting plans for such a plant in Lebel-sur-Quévillon and in 1964 zones were cleared for the construction of the town. The following year the one-time logging camp was incorporated as a town, and by 1966 the mill was up and running.

That summer, people from all over the province of Québec emigrated to the new town to work at the mill.
Being a town literally founded for the purpose of working in the forestry sector, the Lebel-sur-Quévillon has been considered primarily a lumber town since its inception.

When the Domtar mill closed in 2005, the impact to the region was significant.

According to census reports, the town’s population decreased by 15 per cent the years following the closure.

Some silver lining was added to the town’s workforce nearly three years later when a zinc mine in nearby Gonzague-Langlois was bought by Nyrstar, a Belgian-based company and served to restore nearly 200 jobs in the region. In 2011, the National Post reported that the mining operation would produce about 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of zinc annually plus copper and by-products.

Today, the re-opening and re-purposing of the pulp mill directly offers residents of Lebel-sur-Quévillon even more opportunity for growth and employment in the Northern Québecois town.

“This project demonstrates the insight and perseverance of the Quebec government and Fortress Paper in developing a unique opportunity which has been latent for several years, but when completed will revitalize the community of
Lebel-sur-Quévillon and the surrounding areas of Northern Quebec,” Chad Wasilenkoff, CEO of Fortress Paper, said in an announcement this past January.

SOURCES:
Lebel-sur-Quévillion: “History”
“Lebel-sur-Quévillon”
Pulp & Paper Canada: “Fortress Buys Lebel-sur-Quévillon Mill For Dissolving Pulp
Working Forest: “Quebec Lebel-Sur-Quevillon Closed Pulp Town Now Mining Town”

The recommendation follows a study released earlier this month by Ed Fast, Canada’s Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, and China’s Minister of Commerce Chen Deming. The conclusion of the study, titled the Canada-China Economic Complementarities Study, says relations in the forestry sector should be strengthened between the two countries.

“Growing our exports to overseas markets, especially China, is vital to our vision and the future prospects of Canada’s forest products sector,” says Catherine Cobden, the president and CEO of FPAC. “We agree with this study which highlights the benefit of deeper Canada-China trade and investment ties.”

Developing deeper relations with China fits into FPAC’s Vision 2020 strategy – a plan the group introduced earlier this year that outlines a strategy to stimulate and foster innovation in the Canadian forestry sector.

One of the major goals for that strategy is to generate an additional $20 billion in economic activity from new innovations and growing markets.

According to Pulp & Paper Canada, forest products are already Canada’s number one export sector to China.

“Since 2001, the industry has increased its wood exports to China by 45 times,” the publication reported. “Total Canadian forest products exports to China exceeded $4 billion in 2011.”

The study offered suggestions for increasing those exports.

“In Canada, China’s growing interest in natural resources is adding to the diversity of investment sources available to develop capital-intensive Canadian natural resources projects,” the study concluded. “To take advantage of complementarities in this sector, further improvements could be made to the clarity, efficiency and predictability of inward investment-related regulations, the compatibility of certification systems and the expediency of approval processes on goods such as equipment.”

SOURCES:
Pulp & Paper Canada: “Forest Industry Presses To Deepen Economic Ties With China”
Canadian Newswire: “Vision 2020 – Charting A Bold And Innovative Future For Canada’s Forest Products Industry”