Reducing steam use in papermaking with 30% is modelled to
reflect improvements in drying technology. Fig. 9 shows that reducing
drying energy only influences the process energy, all other
life-cycle energy impacts remain unchanged. As the energy intensity
of chemical pulping is high, the energy impact of papermaking
is relatively small. A 30% steam reduction in papermaking has a
positive impact of approximately 2 GJ/t on the life-cycle energy use
of printing and writing paper.