Innovation Anthology #166: Minister of Advanced Education
The Alberta Newsprint Company in Whitecourt uses spruce trees to produce its high quality, bright white newsprint. This makes it the popular choice of publications like USA Today.
However, the company will now start using less desirable pine from trees killed by mountain pine beetles. It is embarking on this experiment with the help of the Alberta Research council.
According to Wade Chute, a pulp and paper specialist with the ARC, pine is darker, the fibres weaker, and these chips will be stained by a blue fungus introduced by the beetles.
That means all the pulping processes must be adjusted to allow for such things as more bleaching when the pine chips hit the production line.
The scientists are also designing a new a shoe press to attach to rollers on the paper machine
WADE CHUTE: What it does, it has a zone that extends the length of time that the sheet spends between (the rollers) without altering the sheet speed. So the sheet still moves at 80 kilometers an hour, but it spends a little bit longer in this nip, because the nip itself is extended. And that allows for more gentle dewatering, an increase in dewatering and an increase in sheet consolidation which ultimately leads to an increase in sheet strength as well.
Thanks today to the Alberta Research Council.
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I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Marlin Schmidt, MSc,
Government of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,
Sponsor
Alberta Research Council
Established as the first provincial research organization in Canada, the Alberta Research Council is 85 years old. The Alberta Research Council (ARC) develops and commercializes technologies to give customers a competitive advantage. A leader in innovation, ARC provides solutions globally to the energy, life sciences, agriculture, environment, forestry and manufacturing sectors.
ARC performs about five per cent of the roughly $1.5 billion in R&D done in Alberta each year, and generates revenues of approximately $84 million per year. ARC operates from five sites across the province in Edmonton, Calgary, Vegreville and Devon and employs more than 600 highly-skilled people.
In January 2010, under the new Alberta Innovation Framework, the Alberta Research Council was restructured and incorporated into the new provincial agency Alberta Innovates Technology Futures.
Program Date: 2008-09-11