Kruger Products Paper Mill supplied with biomass gasification system

Nexterra Energy Corp. has been selected by Kruger Products Ltd. to supply a biomass gasification system for its tissue mill in New Westminster, British Columbia. The new system will be the first of its kind in the pulp and paper industry.

Nexterra’s gasification system will convert locally sourced wood residue into clean burning “syngas” that will be fired directly into a boiler in place of natural gas. The Kruger installation will produce 40,000 lbs/hour of process steam and displace approximately 445,000 gigajoules of natural gas annually. This is equivalent to the amount of natural gas used to heat 3,500 homes in Canada for a year.

Displacing this amount of natural gas with syngas made from wood fuel will lower the mill’s energy costs by millions of dollars a year, making the mill less reliant on fossil fuels. It will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the plant by more than 22,000 tons per year.

“Our New Westminster mill is situated in an urban area, so we needed the cleanest technology available, and in a challenging economic climate, we also needed the most cost-competitive,” said Frank van Biesen, vice president, technology, Kruger Products Ltd.

Kruger, Nexterra and FPInnovations have formed a consortium to build the new system, the first commercial demonstration of Nexterra’s direct fired gasification solution. The project has received support from Natural Resources Canada, the British Columbia Innovative Clean Energy Fund and Ethanol BC.

Earlier this year, Nexterra announced the successful completion of a two-year testing program to confirm that direct firing of syngas can displace up to 100 percent of the fossil fuels in industrial boilers and lime kilns.