Energies 2023 , 16 , 746
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processes (oxygen and heat), the mills are interesting platforms for e-fuels production. If currently produced excess electricity in the mills (13 TWh) was converted to e-fuels, the production would yield as 3.9–9.8 TWh fuel , and the production would bind 0.8–2.7 MtCO 2 . The biogenic CO 2 from the European PPI facilitates a production of 290–390 TWh fuel , but the electricity consumption would be 390–1300 TWh. This would account for a fraction of the demand; for comparison, the European transport sector alone consumed 4889 TWh of energy in 2017 [78]. A political framework for e-fuels is still incomplete, but current proposals do not support the use of bioenergy for the production of renewable e-fuels [79,80]. Therefore, pulp mills would need to purchase renewable electricity that is of non-biological origin. This, along with other rules, makes the business environment complicated for pulp mill operators and decreases the attractiveness to invest. Moreover, the requirement to use variable renewable electricity instead of continuously produced bioelectricity may crucially decrease the profitability of the e-fuels production due to lower operational hours. At the moment, there are no requirements for the origin of CO 2 , and therefore, the PPI does not benefit from its biogenic emissions. Under the current constraints, e-fuels production does not seem attractive in the European PPI mills even though the platform for production could be suitable. Furthermore, it should be noted that carbon capture and especially the production of e-fuels conflict with the energy efficiency improvement target due to the high energy intensity. 3.5. Progress in Developing vs. OECD Countries The geographical distribution of CO 2 emissions and production volumes of the global PPI are presented in Figure 6. The combustion of fossil fuels in the PPI produces annually approximately 194 MtCO 2 , and the combustion- and process-based biogenic CO 2 emissions are approximately 357 MtCO 2 per year. The production mix and volume are important factors when decarbonization in a certain region is considered. Pulp mills can cover their energy demand by their own wood residues, whereas stand-alone paper mills typically rely on fossil fuels. Therefore, decarbonization can be considered easier in pulp producer regions, for example, South America, and challenging in paper producer countries such as China. In addition to production-related factors, national resources such as the availability of biomass or fossil fuels affect the fuel mix in the PPI. For example, natural gas is the main fossil fuel in Europe and North America, whereas energy production in the Chinese PPI relies on coal. Most of the virgin pulp mills are located in forested countries, and those countries are also the largest users of biomass as fuel.
Figure6. The geographical distribution of CO 2 emissions and production volumes of the global pulp and paper industry.
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