Paper mills mull energy options at UM conference

ORONO – With the effect the changing global economy is having on Maine’s pulp and paper mills, their future may be in manufacturing something other than forest products, according to some industry officials.

It could be energy.

Scientific researchers attending a conference Thursday at the University of Maine showed paper industry executives multiple research photographs and complex diagrams of how this might work, but it boiled down to one concept. Instead of making wood fiber into paper, the cellulose extracted from the wood would be converted into ethanol, a type of alcohol that can be burned as fuel.

According to Adriaan van Heiningen, professor of chemical engineering at UMaine, this technology could be developed and implemented at mills without affecting their pulp and paper production. Not only could it help stave off the threat of foreign competition, he said, it also would require little capital investment and would provide the domestic market with a clean, renewable source of energy.

The information was presented during the second day of the annual Maine Forest, Pulp, Paper and Allied Industry Symposium at UMaine.

In light of trends in the global marketplace for pulp and paper production, Maine’s mills likely will need such innovation, according to some executives.

America remains a strong market for pulp and paper products, but a key indicator of the industry is print advertising sales, according to Jennifer Miller, vice president for SAPPI Fine Paper in Boston. Such sales fell off sharply at the beginning of the decade, first with the dot-com bust and then with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she said.

The growing prevalence of the Internet and cable television also has diluted the role print plays in advertising sales, Miller said. To fight this trend, she said, SAPPI has taken out print advertising promoting the effects of print advertising.

“We need to do a lot of work in re-establishing the role of print in brand building,” Miller said.

According to Richard Phillips, senior vice president for International Paper, new pulp and paper plants in Brazil have multiple advantages over their Maine counterparts, such as more efficient equipment, lower labor costs, and a climate that supports plantations of fast-growing eucalyptus trees. He said IP had $26 billion in global sales in 2004, and that of that amount, 75 percent was made in North America.

In light of the changing market, he said, IP hopes to make its global sales evenly split between North America and the rest of the world.

According to Keith Van Scotter, president of Lincoln Paper and Tissue, in some situations smaller companies may have a bigger advantage in Maine than larger companies such as IP. He said Wednesday that a larger company would have had a harder time taking over the abandoned Lincoln mill than his firm, which he co-founded last year.

Because of its small size, there are not a lot of management levels at LPT, keeping the line of communication between millworkers and senior management short, he said.

Also, a larger company with assets most likely would have been “nibbled to death” by all of the mill’s creditors, he said.

Because of the decline of American manufacturing, Van Scotter said, he sometimes has bemoaned the fact that he did not go into another line of work such as the oil or chemical industries.

“It could have been worse,” he said. “I could have worked in the airline industry.”