A new competition begun this week by the Department of Energy could make
the pulp and paper mills of the 21st century cleaner and more energy efficient
by demonstrating improved technologies to convert their spent cooking
liquor streams into new sources of energy. The advanced processes would
also simultaneously recover and recycle pulping chemicals.
The department's National Energy Technology Laboratory has issued a call
for projects to demonstrate advanced ways to gasify the black liquor or
biomass of pulp and paper mills. The gases can be more easily cleaned
of pollutant-forming impurities, then used in onsite cogeneration systems
to produce electricity and steam for the mill.
The department said it would pay up to half of the costs of selected
projects. As much as $100 million could be made available from the government
for projects that could last from three to eight years.
The pulp and paper industry is the nation's most capital intensive manufacturing
industry and is among the most energy intensive. Currently, the industry
relies largely on aging boilers to burn the black liquor produced during
the chemical pulping process.
In 1994, the forest products industry and the Secretary of Energy signed
a compact to develop a research and development strategy and industry
vision known as Agenda 2020. As part of the department's Industries
of the Future Program, the initiative's goal is to boost energy efficiency,
reduce environmental impacts, and increase the forest and paper industry's
productivity.
Black liquor and biomass gasification emerged as one of the priority
technology needs for the industry in the 21st century.
In the advanced processes expected to emerge from the new competition,
gas turbines fueled by the product gas from the gasification of black
liquor or biomass would produce electricity much more efficiently than
conventional recovery boilers. Gasification units may also have lower
capital costs and provide greater process flexibility than recovery boilers
because they can be added as modules to increase mill capacity incrementally.
Because enhanced efficiency reduces the release of greenhouse gases,
U.S. pulp and paper mills could potentially cut their greenhouse gas emissions
as much as 30 million tons per year by 2020 by adopting biomass and black
liquor gasification technologies.
The Energy Department's competition will be geared toward large-scale
pilot and demonstration plants. Gasification technologies for the pulp
and paper industry are evolving but scaleup to the sizes necessary for
commercial plants remains a risky and expensive venture, typically more
than a single company can undertake.
By sharing the costs of the scaleup and demonstrations, the Energy Department
wants to move the new gasification technologies into commercial use in
the same timeframe that pulp and paper mills plan to retire or replace
the older boilers.
The Energy Department's FY 2000 budget includes $14 million for the black
liquor/biomass gasification effort which Congress included in the agency's
fossil energy budget.
In carrying out the competition, the Energy Department's Office of Fossil
Energy is working closely with the Office of Industrial Technologies (part
of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), which oversees
the Industries of the Future Program. Prospective proposers have
two dates to submit applications -- February 29, 2000, and June 1, 2000.
The department plans to select multiple projects for cost-sharing. The
solicitation can be obtained from the Energy Department's web site at
http://www.netl.doe.gov/business/
in Solicitations. |