Smart Papers, the sustainable paper maker, is making a move to run its paper mill on 100 percent renewable energy — and is going off the grid to do so. By Spring 2009, Smart Papers will have completed construction on a co-generation biomass facility, located at the company’s manufacturing center in Hamilton, Ohio.

The new power plant will cost Smart Paper $30 million and will produce 40 megawatts, more than enough to run the paper mill. Smart Papers even plans to supply renewable energy back to the grid as soon as the end of 2010. The company will use yard waste, as well as industrial wood and fiber waste — you know, bits left over from the papermaking process — as biomass fuel.

According to Tim Needham, the chairman of Smart Papers, “The production of these papers will leave the lightest environmental footprint of any premium coated or uncoated printing paper produced in North America.”

Smart Papers has already made its manufacturing center into a zero process waste discharge facility and offers sustainable paper products. The new biomass facility is one more step in not only keeping the company a leader in producing environmentally sound paper products but making the paper mill more efficient.

Photo — Hans S.