Mercer Peace River has been selected by Alberta Emissions Reduction to receive federal and provincial grant money.
The funds are being given for their Pulp Procurement Project, which expected to be complete by May 2022.
$7.5 million dollars is going towards Mercer reducing their carbon footprint by changing their operations to be more site based at the mill.
Currently the mill has off-site debarking and chipping, but with a new state of the art wood processing facility; Mercer projects they will be reducing their carbon emissions over 3.5 million tonnes by 2050.
The new wood processing facility will be a centralized chipping site using the mill’s biogenic green energy to power electrical machinery, instead of using the current method of off-site diesel powered debarkers and chippers; with the products being hauled to the mill by semi-trucks.
With the new investment, logs will be cut to length and transported to the mill on larger, more efficient 10-axle trucks and processed in the new wood processing facility.
The new facility will also have the newest and most innovative technology, which will allow for greater utilization of hardwood trees and optimizing the pulp process, therefore reducing the number of trees needed to make the same amount of product.
Mercer Peace River anticipates a reduction of approximately 500,000 trees annually to meet pulp production goals by getting the new technology.
Work has commenced for the preliminary stages of the project, so it can be completed at the projected end date.
-Erika Rolling, Trending 55 Newsroom
