Energies 2023 , 16 , 746
3of 18
The European Commission has created a reference scenario for reflecting the devel- opment of the EU energy system, transport, and GHG emissions [19]. The scenario took into account the EU-level policies adopted until the end of 2019, member state projections, national contributions, and planned policies, as well as fuel prices, macro-economics, and technology trends. As a large and energy-intensive sector, the PPI was included in the Eu- ropean Commission’s future projections. Figure 1 presents the current state and expected development of energy use in the European PPI. The scenario claimed that the role of electricity in the energy mix would increase. The already low use of solid and liquid fossil fuels would be practically phased out. The use of bioenergy for energy decreased as a result of EEI, and natural gas was expected to remain in the energy mix. The scenario assumed that technologies for emission abatement, i.e., carbon capture technologies, were difficult to adopt. The projection expected that fossil fuel use in the mill sites would decrease by 44%, which led to a significant reduction in direct fossil CO 2 emissions. Despite that, the PPI can, and needs to, do more.
7:K
7:K
(OHFWULFLW\ +HDW 6ROLGV /LTXLGV *DV 2WKHU ELRPDVVZDVWH+ Figure1. Energy use in the European pulp and paper industry in 2015 and 2050. Data from European Commission [19]. It should be noted that the scenario was published in 2021. The geopolitical situation in Europe changed in 2022, which has significantly affected the energy prices and energy supply security. The changes in the business environment could lead to rapid development, for example, to an accelerated reduction of fossil fuels. 2.2. Evaluation of the Future Prospects of CO 2 Emissions The business environment has a significant effect on the operation of an industrial sector, and therefore, a brief review was conducted to provide insights on expected and ongoing future trends. The European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is one of the most important measures for CO 2 emissions reduction in Europe, and it thus affects the business environment of the PPI. Hence, the effect of the EU ETS on the PPI was looked at in this study. The participants of the ETS pay for the emitted fossil CO 2 emissions. In its first 15 years (2005–2020), the EU ETS did not exceed a carbon price of EUR 30/tCO 2 , but at the beginning of 2022, the price was almost EUR 100/tCO 2 [20]. In this study, the effect of the high carbon price (EUR 100/tCO 2 ) on different pulp and paper mill types was calculated. Data on fossil CO 2 emissions and production volumes of different mill types from every Finnish and Swedish mill were collected during previous studies [21–23] and were used in this study as an illustrative example of the differences between mill types. The mills were grouped based on their main products. The costs of the EU ETS were divided by production volumes to receive the effect of ETS on the production cost of pulp and paper. The structure of the Finnish and Swedish PPI is not similar to the European PPI. Many European countries focus on paper production, whereas Finland and Sweden are
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online