Paper mill in Maine, US making sugars for biofuel from wood waste

The paper industry in Old Town, Maine, US has been stuck in gradual decline for some years now. However, one company - Old Town Fuel and Fiber (OTFF) - is said to be 'on the cusp' of a breakthrough for a new process to extract sugars from wood waste that can be used to make biofuels and bioplastics.

The technology would take the wood waste generated from the mill and break it down in stages until it becomes woody biomass cellulosic sugar. For the past few years, OTFF's biorefinery process manager, Darrell Waite, has been working on this pilot project to prove that the mill could house a biorefinery that would be economically viable.

OTFF says it ready to move forward with the project after initial uncertainty, though there are still concerns being voiced by sceptics including the Energy Justice Network. A national group that supports grassroots activists fighting what it calls 'dirty energy and waste facilities', the EJN is also critical of biofuels and in particular biofuels made from wood waste.

'One of the concerns is the amount of logging that would have to take place to do this process they would have to increase logging,' explains Mike Ewall, the co-director of Energy Justice Network. He says there is not enough wood waste to allow production of a sufficient amount of biofuels to replace petroleum, citing a Department of Energy report showing that the Old Town Plant would only create about half a million gallons of fuel per year.

The Federal Government supports the development of the technology, though a spokesman said they must be 'realistic about the challenges' of the process, and the US Department of Energy has invested $30 million (€22 million) in grant money to OTFF to develop it. In Maine, the Governors Energy Office is said to be supportive too.

OTFF is hoping to get the go ahead from the US Department of Energy to start work on creating a full scale biorefinery in 2014.