UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2019

TEXT Silja Kudel   PHOTOGRAPHY UPM; Courtesy of the interviewee

BIOFUELS POWERING THE FUTURE

T hirteen years ago Panu Routasalo was working as an engineer in oil production. Around the same time, UPM also stood at a watershed point in its history. Squeezed by digitalisation, forestry was branded a sunset industry and doomed to a rapid demise. Prematurely, it turns out. Today forestry is a thriving sunrise industry, with UPM leading the pack as an innovator of sustainable wood-based alternatives to oil-based products. Routasalo heads this pioneering work in his current role as UPM’s Vice President of Biofuels. Biofuels is a segment in which UPMhas made rapid strides recently. On the eve of its fifth anniversary, the Lappeenranta Biorefinery is running over its nameplate capacity of 130,000 tonnes per year and racing to keep up with demand. “The market is evolving in a very healthy direction, with clear biomandate growth seen in many countries recently. To meet this positive wave of demand, we are planning a second multi-feedstock biorefinery five times larger than the existing one to be located in the port town of Kotka,” notes Routasalo. The opening of the Lappeenranta Biorefinery five years ago was a ground-breaking moment, as it is the world’s first plant to produce wood-based renewable diesel and naphtha on an industrial scale. Its main products are UPMBioVerno renewable diesel and naphtha, which reduce up to 80% of carbon emissions compared to their fossil equivalents. In simplified terms, this amounts to a CO 2 reduction equal to the annual emissions of over 140,000 cars.

Biofuels offer a climate-positive solution that society cannot afford to ignore. Panu Routasalo explains how UPM is spearheading efforts to replace carbon-intensive fossil energy with plant power.

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