Pulp and Paper Biofuel

Lumber mills may soon be doing double duty.

It turns out wood chips and tree matter not useful for paper production might be useful in other ways. Specifically, they might be used in creating a biofuel – which could turn out to be an even better bet than corn-based ethanol.

Bio-butanol is a little harder to produce than ethanol. But it’s easier to transport, as it doesn’t corrode pipes. It can be used in an ordinary car engine, without the modifications required for ethanol. Its energy content is higher and is easier to combine with gasoline.

Perhaps best of all, it would not affect the food supply. It may, however, drive up the demand and cost for lumber and paper products, and therefore increase logging. Fine for loggers, bad for conservation.

The current model is to use existing paper mills to extract sugars from wood that otherwise goes to waste. These are then refined into biofuels. Mills in Sweden have been producing ethanol this way for a few years, but the Old Town Fuel & Fiber Mill in Maine believes bio-butanol is even better.

The government of Nova Scotia has allocated $20 million to the Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company Ltd. in Hantsport, to produce electricity from “forest byproducts,” and expand in order to produce biodiesel from plastics.

Even the federal government is offering a maximum of $1 billion to mills that use by-products to create energy, if they invest in improving their energy efficiency. Now that’s funding that does double duty.