It is not every year that a company is able to announce a really
dramatic development in tissue technology. This year that is
exactly what Metso did at its long-established technology conference
in Karlstad. Its Advantage NTT technology offers the chance to
make a structured tissue not unlike that made with TAD (or Voith's
ATMOS) with relatively low energy input. We cover the announcement
in more detail in an article starting on page 46.
Another highlight of the conference was Catarina Gunnarsson-Tågmark's
coverage of GE's rebranding. In an industry not noted for its
spellbinding speakers, this was a welcome contrast - style
and substance. We reproduce an edited version of her paper
as our Marketissues article in this issue (see page 5).
But there were many other papers at the conference that presented
an important glimpse at some of the issues facing the industry
and ways of alleviating the problems raised by rising costs
and tough competition. In future issues Tissue World plans
to publish further details on some of these developments.
The conference theme was Quality and energy efficiency in
tissue making and every technical paper addressed the issue
of energy in one form or another.
One of the central problems for Europe is the presence of
price controls in most EU countries. These "impede pricing
and competition - especially in the electricity sector - and
according to an EU report published in June 2007 this is not
sustainable in the long term," said Andreas Espeving,
senior advisor with Vattenfall AB Sales Nordic.
The EU aims to deregulate the energy market and to challenge
government's support of 'national champions', he said. The
aim is to merge national into regional markets. Huge investments
will be needed to meet future demand. Europe will need to add
some 822 GW of new generation capacity by 2030, of which 440
GW will replace older facilities.
The cost of energy can vary dramatically in the tissue industry,
according to Pirkko Petäja and Ulf Strengler from Pöyry.
Cash cost per ton of paper can vary from €100 to over €250,
they said, and can represent up to onethird of the cost of
manufacture, so for the less efficient there are problems but
also great opportunities for cost reduction.
They discussed the variables - different fuels, cost structures,
technologies etc. In particular, they focused on the potential
benefits of cogeneration, which in some cases can be a cost-effective
tool but is impractical unless the right conditions are met.
Aad den Elzen, VP Sales for Turbomach, put the case for combined
heat and power (CHP) installations, which can represent sound
investment environmentally and financially, he said.
"Current industry trends have created new areas of opportunity
for cost-effective smaller scale (5-50 MW) distributed generation
and CHP solutions. These include increasing power supply reliability
and security, increasing facility energy efficiency, and producing
energy from a range of renewable sources. As these trends evolve,
these solutions will be adapted to run on new energy sources,
including alternative transportable fuels and renewable energy
conversion processes.
"From an environmental perspective, CHP technologies
deliver exceptional results in reducing the use of the earth's
limited fossil fuel resources. The significant thermal efficiency
advantages inherent in CHP compared with conventional thermal
and electrical supply methods result in equally significant
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Energy planners, government
agencies and anyone else concerned with conserving our planet's
resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions should consider
CHP technologies as an important tool for the mitigation of
global climate change."
Metso itself was responsible for a number of the papers presented,
in addition to the introduction of NTT. One of these, by Börje
Sandgren, senior product manager energy, tissue business line,
outlined some of the features of the energy-efficient tissue
line.
"Given known technology, energy consumption reductions
of at least 30% are a realistic target for new tissue machine
lines when compared with conventional or standard tissue machine
lines running under the same conditions. An energy consumption
reduction of at least 20% would be a reasonable target when
modifying an existing tissue machine line. The final achievable
reduction, of course, depends a lot on the actual situation
in the mill."
Energy cost stands for about 15% of the total production
cost in a tissue mill, he said. This is double the capital
cost. Four areas with major impact or reduction potential can
be identified: design and optimization of the process system;
ViscoNip™ press technology; steam generator in heat recovery
system; and a turbine in the forming section. All proposed
technologies or measures are available today, except the turbine
in the forming section. Metso hope to have this technology
ready for commercialization in the next two years. TW
