Whereas the chemical pulp sector has received significant attention for its transformation potential to the forest biorefinery, the integrated newsprint mill industry incorporating various forms of mechanical pulping has not. This is at least in part because mechanical pulping process yields are much higher than for chemical pulping. However, perhaps the transformation imperative is even greater for newsprint mills considering the decline in newsprint demand over the last decade. The approach for this industry segment is distinct, starting with defining strategies to exit the newsprint manufacturing business completely, or to integrate new biorefinery processes into the most competitive newsprint facilities to further improve their competitive position and continue to manufacture newsprint in the longer-term. This paper presents a techno-economic evaluation of three different biorefinery process strategies, considering their ability to render the newsprint production more competitive, or otherwise, considering the potential to permit the facility to exit the manufacture of newsprint. Different success metrics are calculated including overall capital expenditure and internal rate of return, but moreover, metrics that consider the longer-term strategy for the newsprint mill facility. Some of the key metrics include ability to reduce newsprint manufacturing costs, ability to implement the biorefinery process incrementally to mitigate technology risk, and ability to develop markets for added-value bioproducts over the longer-term.
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