British Columbia Needs Power Smart Pulp Mills

Pulp mills use a quarter of the available electricity production on Vancouver Island at any given time. The information was presented to the provincial Energy Policy Task Force, by Jay Ritchlin, Program Director at Reach for Unbleached! He called on the Task Force to make recommendations leading to modernised mills that save electricity, lower pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and save consumers from paying an energy subsidy to BC's most power intensive industry.

It makes little sense to lock BC into an unpopular and irreversible dependence on natural gas without properly addressing the pulp industry.

Reach for Unbleached! is calling for a full energy audit on the pulp and paper industry and for provincial government mandates requiring mills to achieve the highest level of energy efficiency possible. The pulp industry has been identified as a place where there is still "low-hanging fruit" in terms of potential energy savings.

Pulp and paper mills are a major part of the British Columbia energy picture.

• Operations are known to be power intensive; in the US, mills consume 20% of US energy capacity.
• When the two largest mills on Vancouver Island (55% of Vancouver Island pulp capacity) were on strike, power consumption for the Island dropped by 1444 Gwh, compared to 8457 Gwh in actual sales.
• The largest of these mills, Elk Falls, draws 215 MW peak from BC Hydro, while generating another 24 MW themselves, along with process steam.
• If the other three mills draw power at about the same ratio, one quarter of the energy demand on the Vancouver Island grid (2625 Gwh) is for five pulp mills.

"The pulp and paper industry in BC produces about 3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and demands massive amounts of scarce electricity," said Delores Broten, Senior Policy Advisor for Reach for Unbleached! "BC Hydro should be using its resources to help clean up our act here at home."

"One pulp mill can use enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes," Ritchlin noted. "These mills need a push to reduce their demand on the general power grid. There are many ways to make mills more efficient. Then we wouldn't need to build gas pipelines in sensitive marine habitat, pollute our air with new gas power turbines on Vancouver Island, or use Hydro rate-payer's money to buy dirty coal plants in the former Soviet Republics as greenhouse gas offsets."

A more efficient pulp industry will alleviate a significant strain on the system.

Reach for Unbleached! suggests that the following measures are vitally important to a thorough and successful energy policy in British Columbia.

• End the power subsidy to industry, whereby these mills are paying about half the price of residential consumers, and half the price of competing pulp facilities in the nearby United States. This is a hidden subsidy.
• Require the mills to take curtailment if and when serious brownout conditions occur on Vancouver Island; also implement off-peak pricing to encourage both industry and other consumers to "spread the load."
• Implement demand side management on Vancouver Island. BC Hydro should invite consumers and environmental groups to be partners in this experiment, putting the gas power developments on hold while demand side management is tried in a serious way.
• Require energy balance targets in permits. Pulp mills should be given a target energy balance ratio. This will be a comparison of how much energy they demand, compared to how much they create on site. The target can be determined by a survey of the best existing mills in the world. Air pollution permits should be adjusted accordingly.
• Put the mills on an extensive Power Smart program. Energy efficiency, like chemical efficiency and the careful use of available fibre, is good business, good greenhouse gas management, and a measure by which product certification programs judge mills. BC Hydro's Power Smart programme planned to focus on industrial efficiencies, such as the enormous savings available by installing modern pumps. Vancouver Island's aging pulp mills need such a review.

A Power Smart Pulp programme should contain at least:

• A pulp industry energy audit. According to the Task Force, "There is a need to understand the demand/supply balance for energy in the province." Options for efficiency are widely available in the pulp industry, if only it were systematically researched. One Quebec mill found the potential to reduce 15% of fossil fuel use, 50,000 tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions, and save $6 million in operating costs. (CADET Energy Efficiency, Newsletter No. 2, 2001.)
• A commitment to create energy and products from waste. There are many ways to do this which improve both environmental and economic performance, for example:
• Port Alice sulphite mill could ferment sludge to make ethanol - they already make lignosulphonate from their waste. Professor Sheldon Duff, at UBC, found that such fermentation would lead to a 60% reduction in the mass of the sludge and yield useable ethanol at a sulphite mill in Quebec.
• Investigate the collection of methane gas from mill landfills, treatment systems and sludge. We have attempted to calculate the potential for this, but insufficient data is available.
• Capture polluting air emissions and incinerate them to yield energy. US kraft mills have to do this now, and the failure to do so can be taken as a pollution subsidy to our industry.
• Invest in new pulping and bleaching methods that allow the recovery of pure lignin for other industrial uses.

Conclusion

In its interim report, the Energy Policy Task Force states, "electricity pricing needs to move to market levels ..." Reach for Unbleached! agrees that the price of electricity should reflect the real cost. We suggest a thorough pulp industry energy audit that leads to specific energy balance targets, a Power Smart programme for BC's pulp mills, demand management and an elimination of subsidised electricity to industry.

"The Liberal government should have no problem letting the free market help in this process," explained Broten. "The first step is to let the pulp and paper mills pay the same rate for electricity as the rest of us, instead of getting it at half price. That should be a good incentive to get Power Smart."

*Jay Ritchlin, Program Director

Take Action To Stop Pulp Pollution

The best pulp pollution regulation in the world is under threat by BC's Liberal government. Tell the government that making pulp mills clean up is the right thing to do. Our environment and our health depend on it.

Demand that this government protect our clean air and clean water by keeping and enforcing pulp pollution regulations.

Write to:

Gordon Campbell (Premier), fax: 250 387_0087, email: Premier@gov.bc.ca,

Joyce Murray (Minister of Water, Air, and Land Protection), fax: (250)387-1356, email: joyce.murray.mla@leg.bc.ca

Your MLA: MLA email and fax addresses can be found at www.legis.gov.bc.ca - click on MLA info. All regular letters can be sent c/o Legislature Buildings, Victoria, BC, V8V 1X4

Here is a sample letter.

To subscribe (or unsubscribe) to MillWatch, send an email to majordomo@onenw.org
with the message: subscribe millwatch <your email address>

* Sponsored by Reach for Unbleached! #708-207 West Hastings, Vancouver BC V6B 1H7; ph: (604)879-2992; fax: (604)879-2272; ritchlin@rfu.org; http://www.rfu.org