Paper companies keep logs fresh under blanket of snow and ice
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Artificial snow machines are currently busy at paper factories in different parts of Finland covering piles of logs in a sheet of white.
Blankets of snow and ice are being piled on millions of coniferous logs, in an effort to keep them fresh through the summer and into the autumn.
In Lohja, at the Kirkniemi mill of the paper manufacturer M-Real, Pellervo Jokinen watches as seven snow cannons spray a fine mist of water into the air. The tiny droplets freeze in the sub-zero temperatrue, and float down as snow on top of the piles of timber. The cannons use a total of about 100 cubic metres of water an hour.
When the artificial snow is thick enough, snow cats used on ski slopes, or bulldozers are used to pack the snow into a tight layer, after which it is covered by an insulating layer of wood chips.
The Kirkniemi factory is putting 25,000 cubic metres of spruce logs into cold storage - the equivalent of one month’s production. The factory uses the logs to produce coated magazine paper.
Martti Savelainen of M-Real says that the cold storage is a good way to make sure that the wood used in paper production is as fresh as possible. Spruce dries easily, and Savelainen notes that if the wood dries too much before it is processed, the quality of the fibres deteriorates.
Finland’s largest cold storage operation for wood is being set up by M-Real’s competitor Stora Enso, which is covering 250,000 cubic metres of wood in Anjalankoski for later use in the company’s factories in the southeast of Finland.
The practice of covering piles of felled timber with ice and snow became standard procedure in the last decade, when engineers at paper factories began making increasingly stringent quality demands for their raw material.
Stora Enso’s Matti Karjula concedes that the process is costly, but says that it is worth the price. The Anjalankoski pile is not emptied until September or October.
According to Karjula, the cold storage guarantees the good quality of the factory’s raw material. It also helps balance out seasonal fluctuations in the price wood.
Hannu Vainio of UPM, Finland’s largest consumer of spruce fibre, says that the method has benefits for the environment. He notes that the fresh wood remains light in colour, which means that fewer bleaching agents are needed in the processing.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 25.2.2005 - TODAY |
 Paper companies keep logs fresh under blanket of snow and ice |
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