PJL-32

Energy clearly the main theme at Tissue Making 2008

New technology for challenging times, as well as several interesting ideas about achieving incremental energy savings, were the highlights of the meeting in Karlstad, Sweden.

Perini Journal

The Tissue Making 2008 conference, held in late September in Karlstad, Sweden, was once again a successful event, attracting close to 200 tissue makers from 30 countries around the world. The main sponsors of the meeting were Metso Paper, Metso Automation, and Turbomach Industrial Energy Systems. Held under the theme of: “Quality and Energy Efficiency in Tissue Making – Explore the Next Generation”, energy was very clearly the main focus of the event. The format included a first day of speeches and a second day composed of numerous workshops and mini-exhibits, as well as a visit to the Metso Tissue Technology Center. The conference was opened by Adrian Poretti, who is the Product Supply Director for Family Care in Developing & Emerging Markets at Kimberly-Clark. Echoing a theme that has been heard before, Poretti said customers and consumers have been asking for higher quality tissue products, but they have not always been willing to pay for the improvements. Perhaps this conference, he said, would give tissue makers some good ideas of how to meet those sometimes opposing goals.

 

NTT WORLD LAUNCH. A good example of such a new idea, and one of the highlights of the entire show, was the launch of Metso Paper’s much-anticipated Advantage NTT process for making high-bulk, high-softness tissue with much lower energy requirements. Metso had indicated that the new NTT technology, that makes a new category of tissue which it calls ’textured tissue’, would truly be something new. The NTT concept was introduced by Marco Marcheggiani, who is President of Metso Paper’s Tissue Business Line. Saying that tissue makers have continuously been asking for a technology which can make high quality tissue with low energy consumption, he gave some humorous examples of what many people would find impossible to believe. The first was a ‘green’ or environmentally friendly Hummer, the giant tank-like vehicle that is frequently seen on US highways, especially in Los Angeles. A second example was a cow that consumed half the normal food intake, while at the same time producing double the normal milk quantity. Hardly believable, he said. The third example was more related to tissue and in fact to the NTT concept. It seems impossible to make a high end tissue paper produced at lower cost and lower energy consumption than conventional. But it is here today, said Marcheggiani. The NTT technology, which was briefly introduced in the previous issue of Perini Journal, allows production of high-bulk and high-softness tissue with less fiber and less energy than conventional DCT tissue.

 

ENERGY PROJECT IN FOCUS AT METSÄ TISSUE. Jarkko Kaplin, Vice President of Purchasing & Energy, Metsä Tissue Corporation, gave a good presentation entitled ‘Energy - Tissuemakers’ New Challenge and Opportunity’. Kaplin spoke about an extensive program that Metsä Tissue has undertaken to measure, analyze and prioritize where the best energy savings can come from. The project involved a best practices comparison of the company’s 20 tissue machines. So the PMs were compared with respect to the unit operations such as forming or pressing and then those operations were broken down into smaller units to define the measurements required for evaluations of indicators. These included power, heat and water input for each part of each of the 20 machines. From this data, target values could be determined and then an investment program laid out which gives the optimal cost efficiency considering all improvement alternatives. As an example of the results, Kaplin mentioned the simple case of optimizing pulp stock agitators throughout the company, which achieved a savings of 1% of the company’s total electric energy consumption. Energy, from a different angle of a supplier rather than a consumer, was also the topic for the following speaker, Andreas Espeving, Senior Advisor, Vattenfall AB. Vattenfall is a very big electricity and heat supplier in Northern Europe and Espeving gave his analysis of the Global Cost of Energy - Outlook from the Nordic market. The global increase in energy demand is expected to be 50% by the year 2030 and the power industry is facing the major challenge of meeting that demand while also meeting increasingly stringent regulation as far as CO2 emissions. Especially in Europe, the combination of deregulated markets, increasing focus on the climate issue and the lack of large gas and oil reserves in this continent, make this an extremely challenging time for its energy companies, said Espeving.

 

OVERLOOKED OPPORTUNITY. More applicable examples of tissue industry energy savings were given by Pirkko Petaja, Associate Principal, and Ulf Strenger, Senior Consultant, at Pöyry. Their paper, Energy Systems for Tissue, went through four case histories of tissue mills using different energy sources, such as gas, LPG, gas turbine cogeneration, and indirect solid fuel. “Energy costs,” they said, “can vary widely from 12% to 33% of total cash manufacturing costs for mother reels, and there is no simple formula for what is best in all locations. The key thing is to recognize that there are large energy savings to be made. Unfortunately, optimizing the energy system in tissue mills is a cost saving opportunity that is often forgotten.” Clearly today’s energy prices must be a rather large reminder of the scale of the opportunity.

 

GREEN BUSINESS IS GOOD BUSINESS. A slightly offbeat but very inspiring speech was held by Catarina Gunnarsson-Togmark, who is Brand Manager at General Electric, based in Brussels. Under the heading “Imagination at Work - How GE leverages its brand to create growth”, Togmark spoke about the company’s Ecomagination program that was launched several years ago with the lofty aim to build a USD 25 billion business from scratch. Essentially the GE senior management recognized that there were business growth opportunities to be gained out of the increasingly intense environmental and resource challenges for customers across a majority of GE’s businesses. Launched in 2005 with the goal to have USD 20 billion in sales by 2012, the program has been wildly successful, so the target was raised to USD 25 billion. The idea is to use green, clean technology for clean energy generation, with wind, solar power, water cleaning and recycling as examples.

 

OTHER GOOD SPEECHES. Other speeches presented during the conference included ‘The Energy Efficient Tissue Making Line’ by Börje Sandgren from Metso Paper; ‘Greenhouse Gas Benefits of Clean Combined Heat and Power’ by Aad den Elzen from Turbomach SA; ‘Cost-efficient Quality Management for Tissue’ by Jukka Sorsa, Metso Automation; ‘Process Configuration of De-inking Lines for Producing Tissue’ by Jaana Sjöström at Metso Paper; ‘Cost Savings for Tissue Lines with an Optimization Agreement’ by Luigi Tasso of Metso Automation and Fabrizio Lapucci from the Italian tissue maker Sofidel SpA; and finally ‘Tailor Made Service for Higher Efficiency and Lower Costs’ by Gunnar Gullbrand of Metso Paper. The first day rounded off with an excellent evening of dining and entertainment. The second day of the Tissue Making 2008 conference was a more informal setup, with numerous workshops and a visit to the Metso Tissue Technology Center. There, delegates got to see the NTT concept in action as a test run was being conducted to display the new textured tissue concept. The run also featured Metso Automation’s new IR fiber and moisture scanner as well as the advanced IQSteamPro steam box on the pilot line.

 

PICK AND CHOOSE WORKSHOPS. The informal workshops on Friday, which delegates could freely attend, included sessions on the following subjects:

 

• ‘Tissue Making - It's about Chemistry Management’ by Metso Automation;

• ‘Improvements in Safety, Environment, Sheet Quality, Efficiency - Tissue Web Cleaning and Dust Control’ by Metso Paper;

• ‘Stock Preparation and Recycled Fiber’ by Metso Paper, DIP Systems;

• ‘Yankee and Hood - The Major Energy Consumers Demand Your Attention’ by Metso Paper;

• ‘Water - A Valuable Resource Needing Careful Handling’ by Metso Paper;

• ‘Advantage Energy Saving - Your Energy Saving Potentials and some Case Studies’ by Metso Paper;

• ‘Energy Saving through Cogeneration’ by Turbomach;

• ‘Direct Use of Gas Turbine Exhaust Gas’ by Turbomach.

 

At the end of the event, delegates expressed their general satisfaction with the content as well as the format. In addition, the get-together offered a good opportunity for tissue makers to exchange ideas about the increasingly challenging times they are facing and possible solutions to those challenges.

Comment:
Login or Register to publish a comment