The pulp and paper industry, a cornerstone of modern life, faces a critical challenge: its significant environmental footprint. As one of the world's most energy-intensive sectors, it's under increasing pressure to decarbonise.
Green hydrogen, produced using renewable energy, is a clean fuel that offers the pulp and paper industry a powerful pathway to slash emissions, enhance energy security, and build a sustainable future.
But what exactly is it, how can it be used, and what hurdles must be overcome?
This analysis examines green hydrogen's potential to fuel the pulp and paper sector's decarbonisation journey. We'll explore its production, benefits, applications, challenges, and role in achieving carbon neutrality.
The Urgency: Why Decarbonisation Can't Wait
Let's face it: the pulp and paper industry has a substantial carbon footprint. The impact is undeniable, accounting for nearly 2% of global industrial emissions (as of 2022) and the European sector alone emitting over 86 million tonnes of CO2 in 2023. [1]
This footprint could expand as global paper demand grows unless decisive action is taken.
The pressure is mounting from all sides:
- Regulators: Stricter environmental laws and potential carbon border taxes mean inaction could soon hit the bottom line.
- Investors: ESG factors are increasingly driving investment decisions. Companies need clear decarbonisation strategies to attract capital.
- Consumers: Eco-conscious buyers prefer sustainably produced goods, impacting brand loyalty and market share.
Decarbonisation is no longer optional. It's essential for long-term competitiveness and viability. This is where green hydrogen emerges as a promising solution for deep emissions cuts.
Decoding Green Hydrogen: The Clean Energy Carrier
So, what makes hydrogen "green"? It's all about how it's made.
- Green Hydrogen: Produced via electrolysis, splitting water (H₂O) into hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen (O₂). The crucial factor? This process's electricity comes from renewable sources like solar, wind, or hydropower. The result: virtually zero greenhouse gas emissions. (The global standard sets a tough threshold of <=1 kg CO₂e per kg H₂).
- Grey Hydrogen: The most common type today, made from natural gas via Steam Methane Reforming (SMR). This process releases significant CO₂ (around 10 kg CO₂ per kg H₂), making it a major climate contributor.
- Blue Hydrogen: Also uses SMR but adds Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to trap some CO₂. While better than grey, it's not emission-free (typically 3.5-4 kg CO₂ per kg H₂).
The Bottom Line: Green hydrogen is the only sustainable, climate-friendly option. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that switching to green hydrogen production could eliminate 830 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted annually by fossil-fuel-based methods. [2,3]
Beyond being clean, green hydrogen is versatile. It can store intermittent renewable energy (producing hydrogen when the sun/wind are abundant, using it later), serve as fuel, or act as a feedstock for green chemicals. It plays a vital role in the broader energy transition, especially for hard-to-electrify industries.
Pinpointing the Problem: Carbon Emissions in Pulp & Paper Manufacturing
To understand how green hydrogen helps, we need to know where the industry's emissions originate:
- Burning Fossil Fuels: Boilers generating vast amounts of steam and heat (up to 80% of mill fuel use) often rely on coal, natural gas, or oil.
- Lime Kilns: Essential for chemical recovery, these high-temperature kilns (around 800°C) are typically fueled by natural gas or oil.
- Chemical Recovery: While burning black liquor (biomass byproduct) is considered biogenic, auxiliary fossil fuels and makeup chemicals (like carbonates) add non-biogenic CO₂.
- Purchased Electricity: If the grid electricity isn't from renewable sources, it carries an indirect carbon footprint.
- Supply Chain: Emissions come from raw material extraction (wood) and transportation (logs in, products out).
Despite significant energy efficiency gains over the years (like AF&PA members reducing purchased energy by>13% between 2005 and 2020), the sheer energy intensity of pulping, bleaching, refining, and especially drying means substantial fossil fuel reliance often remains. [5,6]
Putting Green Hydrogen to Work: Transforming Mill Operations
Green hydrogen isn't just a concept. It has tangible applications across the pulp and paper mill:
- Generating Clean Power:
- Fuel Cells and Internal Combustion Engines: These devices convert hydrogen directly into electricity, with only water and heat as byproducts. This clean power can run machinery, reducing reliance on potentially carbon-intensive grid electricity.
- Gas Turbines (CHP): Many mills use combined heat and power (CHP) systems, which are often fueled by natural gas. Green hydrogen can be blended with or entirely replaced by natural gas in these turbines, decarbonising electricity and heat generation and potentially leveraging existing infrastructure.
- Delivering High-Temperature Heat:
- Lime Kilns & Dryers: These energy hogs require intense heat. Green hydrogen combustion can reach high temperatures, offering a direct, zero-carbon replacement for fossil fuels in these critical processes.
- Hydrogen Blending: As a transitional step, blending green hydrogen into existing natural gas pipelines and heating systems can gradually reduce emissions without immediate major retrofits.
- Hydrogen Boilers: Dedicated boilers that burn hydrogen cleanly (producing only water vapour) can generate the essential steam used throughout the mill.
- Creating Green Chemicals:
- E-Methanol: Green hydrogen can react with captured biogenic CO₂ (from biomass/black liquor combustion) to produce renewable e-methanol. This creates a sustainable chemical feedstock or potential green fuel, turning a waste stream into a valuable product.
- On-Site Hydrogen Peroxide (H₂O₂): The hydrogen and oxygen from electrolysis can potentially produce H₂O₂ on-site. H₂O₂ is a key bleaching agent in chlorine-free processes, offering a path to chemical self-sufficiency and reducing reliance on fossil-fuel-derived chemicals. [7,8]
The Upside: Why Embrace Green Hydrogen?
Adopting green hydrogen offers compelling advantages for forward-thinking pulp and paper companies:
- Slash Emissions Dramatically: Replacing fossil fuels with green hydrogen directly eliminates CO₂ emissions at the point of use. As pioneers like Essity are demonstrating (aiming for 66% CO₂ reduction in drying at one UK mill), the potential for deep decarbonisation is real, helping meet ambitious climate targets.[9]
- Boost Energy Independence: Green hydrogen relies on local, renewable resources (sun, wind, water), reducing dependence on volatile global fossil fuel markets and enhancing energy security. Storing energy as hydrogen also helps manage the intermittency of renewables, ensuring a more stable supply.
- Unlock Potential Long-Term Cost Savings: While green hydrogen costs are currently higher, they are projected to fall significantly due to technological advances, economies of scale, and cheaper renewable energy. Furthermore, avoiding future carbon taxes, leveraging government incentives, and achieving more stable energy costs compared to fossil fuels can make green hydrogen economically attractive in the long run.
Navigating the Roadblocks: Challenges to Widespread Adoption
Despite the promise, the path to widespread green hydrogen use has hurdles:
- Technological Maturity & Scale: Current green hydrogen production needs significant scaling up. Electrolyser technology requires further efficiency, durability, and cost-effectiveness improvements to meet industrial demand affordably. Adapting high-temperature equipment (like kilns) for optimal hydrogen combustion also needs more R&D.
- Infrastructure Gaps: A dedicated hydrogen transportation, storage, and distribution infrastructure is largely missing. Building new pipelines or safely repurposing existing gas lines, developing effective on-site storage solutions (considering hydrogen's properties and safety needs), and ensuring a reliable renewable electricity supply for electrolysis require massive investment and coordination.
- Economic Feasibility: High upfront capital costs for electrolysers and infrastructure, and current production costs often exceeding fossil fuels, make the economics challenging. Predictable and supportive government policies (incentives, subsidies, carbon pricing) are crucial to de-risk investments and bridge the cost gap.
Trailblazers: Learning from the Pioneers
Several pulp and paper companies are already leading the charge:
- Essity: Successfully piloted CO₂-free tissue production using green hydrogen in Germany (2021-23) and is now trialling hydrogen for drying in the UK (starting 2024), targeting a 66% emissions cut for that process.[10]
- Smurfit Kappa: Partnered in the HYFLEXPOWER project in France, successfully demonstrating an integrated hydrogen gas turbine (initially 30% H₂ blend, aiming for 100%) for renewable energy storage and power generation.[11]
- Kimberly-Clark Australia: Announced ambitious plans for its Millicent mill to transition from natural gas to a 20% green hydrogen blend by 2027, aiming for 100% green hydrogen by 2029, potentially creating a regional hydrogen hub.[12]
These examples showcase growing industry confidence and provide valuable lessons for broader adoption.
Beyond Hydrogen: A Holistic Decarbonization Strategy
Green hydrogen is a powerful tool, but not a silver bullet. Achieving true carbon neutrality requires a multi-faceted approach:
- Maximise Biomass: Continue leveraging sustainable biomass (black liquor, wood residues) for energy, potentially exploring advanced biofuels.
- Boost Energy Efficiency: Relentlessly pursue energy savings through technology (heat pumps, advanced drying) and process optimisation. Every unit of energy saved makes the transition easier and cheaper.
- Strategic Electrification: Electrify processes where feasible (especially lower/medium temperature heating) using renewable electricity via electric boilers or heat pumps.
- Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS/BECCS): Consider CCS for remaining fossil fuel emissions (e.g., from lime kilns) and explore Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) on biomass combustion (especially black liquor) for potential harmful emissions, though cost and infrastructure remain challenges.
Charting the Course Forward: Recommendations for Action
Green hydrogen offers a compelling, sustainable pulp and paper industry future. To realise this potential, concerted action is needed:
For Pulp and Paper Companies
- Assess & Plan: Conduct site-specific feasibility studies to identify the best opportunities for green hydrogen integration (e.g., kilns, dryers, CHP).
- Invest & Pilot: Fund R&D and pilot projects to test technologies and build internal expertise.
- Collaborate on Infrastructure: Explore partnerships for on-site or regional green hydrogen production and supply.
- Advocate: Engage with policymakers to shape supportive regulations, standards, and funding programs.
- Phase It In: Consider starting with blending or smaller applications while planning for larger-scale transitions.
For Policymakers
- Create Certainty: Develop long-term policies supporting the entire green hydrogen value chain.
- Incentivise: Offer robust financial support (subsidies, tax credits) to bridge the cost gap for production and industrial use.
- Streamline: Simplify permitting for renewable energy and hydrogen projects.
- Fund Innovation: Support R&D on cost reduction, efficiency, and industry-specific applications.
- Foster Collaboration: Encourage partnerships between energy providers, industry, and researchers.
For Researchers & Technology Providers
- Drive Down Costs: Develop cheaper, more efficient, and durable electrolysers.
- Solve Infrastructure Challenges: Innovate in safe, scalable hydrogen storage and transport.
- Optimise Integration: Research hydrogen combustion in industrial equipment (kilns, dryers, turbines) for optimal performance and safety.
- Develop Integrated Solutions: Explore synergies, such as producing green chemicals using green hydrogen from mill byproducts (CO₂, wastewater).
The journey to decarbonise the pulp and paper industry is complex but achievable. By strategically embracing green hydrogen alongside other sustainable practices, the sector can meet its climate obligations and unlock new efficiency, resilience, and competitiveness levels in the low-carbon economy. The time to act is now.
Visit Hydrogenera to find out more about our green hydrogen solutions.