PWC - TUESDAY FEBRUARY 8, 2022 Detailed program

Virginie Chambost, EnVertis Consulting, Canada

08:00 – 09:30

Session Chair: Jawad Jeaidi, Natural Resources Canada/CanmetENERGY

Roundtable –  Biorefinery Transformation 101:  Tutorial on Designing the Biorefinery  – Session 1

The emerging bioeconomy continues to advance, and forestry companies announce new initiatives and new bioproducts with increasing frequency. However, companies are at different points in setting their strategies, while a range of promising biorefinery product-process options continue to emerge in different industrial sectors. What is the competitive biorefinery for your company, and how can technologies be systematically evaluated to assess competitive advantage taking into account technology, market and policy uncertainties? This is the first of two tutorial sessions hosted by EnVertis Consulting to overview some practical approaches for setting a sustainable biorefinery strategy.

Speakers:

“Designing the Biorefinery”, Paul Stuart, EnVertis Consulting and Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
“Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) Panels: Aligning Around your Biorefinery Strategy”, Virginie Chambost, EnVertis Consulting, Canada

Paul Stuart, EnVertis Consulting and Polytechnique Montréal, Canada

10:00 – 12:00

Session Chair: Eric Ashby, VP Paper Manufacturing, Domtar Inc.

Introductory presentation by Jean-Pierre Fry, Corporate Safety Specialist, Domtar Inc.

How do you approach and prevent SIF (Severe Injury and Fatality) incidents in your mill?

Eric Ashby, VP Paper Manufacturing, Domtar Inc.

10:00 – 11:30

Session Chair: Javad-Reza Saberian, Kruger Inc.

• 10:00 “UHLE Box Dewatering Improvements with Perforated Covers”, Stefan Rader & David Brown, Rochling Leripa
  
• 10:30 “Evolving Refiner Plate Designs for Changes in Furnish Quality”, Al Zumpano, Andritz
  
• 11:00  “Revolutionary Wire Clearing Solution…using less Water and Energy”, Gilles Boulianne, Coldwater

Session Chair: Peter Hansen, RISE

• 10:00 “Intelligent Process Optimization Utilizing A Novel Control & Monitoring Platform”, Meagan Walker, Kemira
• 10:30 “Extended information of product quality and their variability in paper board production using online measurement systems”, Mikael Magnusson, RISE Research Institute of Sweden
• 11:00 “How to achieve a profitable ROI during a mill conversion with digitization”,  Alec Rancourt & Chris Apostolidis, Schneider Electric

Melanie Pinatton, CSA Group, Canada

Ludo Diels, VITO, Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Belgium

Paul Boudreault, Bosk Bioproduits, Canada

Session Chair: Melanie Pinatton, CSA Group, Canada

Technical Panel: Policies, standards, and certifications to support the deployment of the Canadian bioeconomy

The potential benefits to Canadians from the commercialization of forest bioproducts include a stronger and more diversified forest sector as a result of new trade, increased green employment and economic benefits for forest dependent communities. Further benefits will come from any secondary bioproduct manufacturing industries. It is anticipated that forest bioproducts will progressively replace existing fossil-based materials and open up new potential markets with wide reaching environmental, health and social benefits, in areas such as biofuels, biochemicals, bioplastics. The move to low-carbon products is one transition way that forest products sector can contribute to achieve Canada’s Net-Zero Future.

By increasing trade of these bioproducts, benefits will arise to Canadians – both in terms of increased sustained economic activity in those communities where manufacturers operate and as a result of having improved access to renewable and recyclable transformative forest products. However, moving from a fossil-economy to a bioeconomy is not straightforward and barriers to the development of bio-based economy have not yet been overcome. Bio-based businesses need highly skilled workers; bio-based start-ups are still expensive to finance and cost of bioproducts is not always fully competitive compared to traditional products. In addition, there is a need for additional national policy instruments to enable deployment of renewables, harmonized standard to establish a stable quality of bioproducts, and increase awareness and demand for new low-carbon products.

Common understanding of the barriers for the growth of the forest bioeconomy is necessary. New policy, regulations and standards can help address some of these barriers and accelerate the growth of forest bioeconomy. 

The panel will showcase how common ground discussions and consensus between the various stakeholders support the development of emerging pathways for the valorization and commercialization of wide spectrum of bioproducts, using standards and/or regulations. The strategies for market development and the critical challenges associated with commercialization of bioproducts will be discussed. It will be also an opportunity to examine the specific role of governments in creating agile regulations and developing/implementing large-scale bioeconomy plants and related manufacturing industries.

Panelists:

Ludo Diels, VITO, Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Belgium
Jordan Solomon, ECOSTRAT, Canada
Paul Boudreault, Bosk Bioproduits, Canada
Jean-François Levasseur, Natural Resources Canada/Canadian Forest Service

Jordan Solomon, ECOSTRAT, Canada

Jean-François Levasseur, Natural Resources Canada/Canadian Forest Service

Session Chair:  Aaron Ferris – Irving Pulp & Paper

Roundtable – Safety and Incident Reports and Supplier Technology Updates

12:30 – 14:00

Session Chair: Eric  Soucy, Natural Resources Canada

Panel: Energy, and GHG and competitiveness of the pulp and paper industry

The Canadian government has made major commitments towards reducing GHG emissions by 2030 and committed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. What does it mean for the pulp and paper (P&P) industry?

The P&P industry has already decarbonized significantly since the early 1990’s via improving energy efficiency, fuel switching, and process redesigns. Even if great progresses were made, there are still opportunities to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions in pulp and paper mills. Furthermore, as most of the current CO2 emissions are of biomass origin, this sector has the potential to become a carbon-negative industry by implementing carbon capture and storage. P&P bio-products can also help other sectors to decarbonize; in particular, bioenergy products can replace fossil fuels in different sectors while biochemical can be used as raw materials in the chemical industry.

In this session, four panelists will share their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges that the pulp and paper industry is facing in the upcoming decades in response to Canada’s commitments to reach net-zero by 2050.

Moderator: Eric Soucy, Director, Industrial Systems Optimization, CanmetENERGY – Varennes, Natural Resources Canada

Panelists:

Harpuneet Singh Ghuman, PEng., C.E.M., Section Lead, Energy and Carbon, West Fraser Mills Ltd.
Mahima Sharma, M.Eng., Director, Environment, Innovation and Mill Regulations, Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC)
Greg Rampley, M.Eng., Acting Director, Economic Analysis Division, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada
Amit Kumar, Ph.D., P.Eng., FCSBE, Professor, University of Alberta

Format : Each panelist will have about 5-10 min to present a short presentation and then we will have the discussion period

Managing OSH… 20% of efforts… 80% of results – Marc-André Ferron, Gestion Authentique

Based on simple facts and basic principles of risk management, the lecturer leads participants to understand their responsibilities in OHS management and due diligence. Thus the three major legal duties of managers (the duty of foresight, efficiency and authority) are transmitted through examples and concepts of great simplicity and applicable to everyone.

The participant leaves the conference with notions allowing him to build a strategy based on the 20% efforts that will give him 80% results, simultaneously ensuring his diligence and performance.

Learning objectives

• Reduce the number of injured people in your organization
• Do your homework in health and safety management and build your due diligence
• Put 20% of efforts to obtain 80% of results
• Maximize the benefits of OHS investments
• Avoid the main pitfalls

Session Chair: Dr Marzouk Benali, Natural Resources Canada, BIOFOR Conference Chair

• 12:30 Keynote:  “Launching Pads for Forest Biorefineries: Technical and Sustainable Solutions“, Fernando Preto, NRCan/CanmetENERGY
• 13:30 “Anchor Companies-driven Bioeconomy Clusters: Turning Challenges into Opportunities for Competitive Advantage”, Luana Dessbesell, EnVertis Inc., Canada

14:30 – 16:00

Session Chair: Alyssa Day, Alpac

• 14:30 “Pulp Non-Fiction, coming to a theatre near you”, Martin Pudlas, Red Leaf Pulp
  
• 15:00 “Selection and Treatment of Pulp Furnishes as a Means of Enhancing Tissue Performance”, Xuejun Zou, FPInnovations
• 15:30  “Sustainable and Alternative Fibers for Hygiene Consumer Goods”, Ronalds W. Gonzalez, North Carolina State University

Session Chair: Michael Doucet, BTG

• 14:30 “Bleach Plant Benchmarking and Sequence Kappa Factors (SKF) Flaw”, Tom Mullen, Process Innovations
• 15:00 “Brownstock Improvements at Mercer Celgar”, Marc Caruth & Koowar Singh, Mercer Celgar
• 15:30 “Sodium Hydroxide Safety”, Stéphane Messier, Chemtrade Logistics

Session Chair: Émilie Thibault, Polytechnique Montréal

• 14:30  “Analysis on VOC and odor released from lignin and its thermoplastic blends“, Sajjad Saeidlou, National Research Council of Canada
• 15:00 “Use of I-BIOREF as a Decision Support Tool to Compare Different Biofuels Production Strategies”, Georgiana Bele, Polytechnique Montréal
• 15:30 “Digitalization for climate-resilient Forest operations and wood supply”, Alireza Moussavi, Polytechnique Montréal