The hottest technology and environment cannot have

Can't you have both technology and environment? The paper industry proved not to be so.

The Economist, a British magazine, published an article entitled "advancing the green revolution" on November 30. The article said that as a major energy consumer, the pulp and paper industry tried to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction through technological innovation. If these new technologies can be applied to the whole paper industry, the environment can benefit greatly from specializing in dental 3D scanning and cad/cam software. The full text is excerpted as follows:

technology and environment have never been able to have both. Some environmentalists hate technological development. Most environmental policies focus on price, energy consumption and subsidies for solar and wind energy. However, solar energy and wind energy are not cutting-edge technologies now. Few major technological breakthroughs can be included in the list. One of the most promising technological breakthroughs is carbon capture and storage, which can neutralize the carbon dioxide released when fossil fuels are burned. Norway's munstad was originally building a large-scale carbon capture and storage project, but the Norwegian government suddenly stopped the project

in view of this, we have more reason to review the efforts of European pulp and paper enterprises in technological innovation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions with interest and a little doubt. This week, these companies announced some innovative ideas. If these ideas are adopted by the whole paper industry, by 2050, paper 2. Sensors: sensors are important components of the accuracy and force measurement stability of experimental machines, the energy consumption of the industry will be reduced by one quarter, and its carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by more than half. These ideas will test the extent to which the technology developed by companies can slow global warming

pulp and paper industry is a major energy consumption item. From the perspective of energy consumption, it is the fifth largest industrial user in the world. According to the World Resources Institute, a think-tank, the global carbon dioxide emissions of this industry in 2005 were about 500 million tons. However, European paper enterprises are relatively environmentally friendly: the Federation of European paper industries, a trade association, said that the carbon dioxide emissions of its member enterprises in 2011 were about 46million tons. Unregulated pulp mills also produce a lot of disgusting waste. A small workshop located on the coast of Lake LEGO in Baikal, Russia, has been discharging bleach into the world's largest freshwater lake for many years

faced with the requirement of significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the European paper union decided to try technological reform to see whether it can bring significant improvement. The alliance established two special groups composed of scientists and businessmen, each led by a former CEO (Smurfit Kappa, the fourth largest paper company in Europe, and Mondi, the fifth largest paper company, respectively). The two groups set up a common sense database because the idea is to test creative ideas, not patent information. Team members also seek new ideas from companies that implement carbon emission reduction projects, such as Tata Steel in India. Finally, each group put forward four ideas. The jury selected the winner on November 27

to make paper, you can either grind wood chips mechanically to separate fibers, or boil wood chips with chemicals to remove lignin that binds fibers. After that, you need to use a lot of water to dissolve the fiber, and then pour the pulp into the paper machine, which produces paper through the process of pressing and dehydration

the plan proposed by the winning team is to abandon the steps of mechanical grinding and chemical cooking. Instead, it uses a substance called eutectic solvent to dissolve wood and separate lignin. Eutectic solvents can be produced naturally: plants produce them when they are dry. These solvents can fundamentally turn the paper industry into a biochemical industry and reduce the main energy consumption by 40%. This method can also produce useful by-products, such as pure lignin (which can be used as a raw material for a large number of chemicals) and some kind of cellulose for high-end chemicals. One of the requirements of this project is that the new concept proposed by the expert group should not only reduce costs, but also bring added value

now, a large amount of energy consumed by the paper industry is used to dehydrate paper. Therefore, making the pulp no longer contain water can also reduce energy consumption. The two groups proposed two solutions. One is to use steam to separate fibers (that is, to reduce the use of water). The other is to suspend the fiber in viscous fluid, and then remove the fluid by changing the viscosity around the fiber. This idea is inspired by penguins. In order to avoid underwater seals, penguins will release residual air bubbles when swimming, thus forming a thin layer of air around their feathers, thereby reducing friction

at present, these concepts are only in the experimental stage and have not been used in commercial production. Therefore, their usefulness remains to be tested

even so, we can learn some lessons from it. The main lesson is that we can cope with climate change through technological means. Marco Mensink of the European paper union said that I Gou Rixin were extremely surprised by their findings. Some of these ideas can not only reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but also transform energy intensive enterprises into new enterprises, such as biochemical enterprises, pulp and paper industry is a typical example. Secondly, enterprises themselves can make many contributions to curbing climate change. They do not need to wait until the government urges them to take action, although the European Paper Union hopes that the EU can fund its basic research

finally, the reason why this project is extraordinary is that companies have cooperated at the technical level. Generally, there is only competition between companies. Pulp and paper companies work together to study common environmental protection technology concepts. We hope that from now on, companies can compete to implement these ideas