Nova Scotia fell three per cent short of the threshold for getting a $3.7-billion bioproducts hub in Liverpool.  The analysis of the potential profitability commissioned by Northern Pulp parent Paper Excellence found that a new mill could reach an 11 per cent rate of return on investment, short of the 14 per cent cut off set by the company.  …The study was commissioned last spring after the provincial government and Paper Excellence agreed to bury the hatchet in the long-running battle over Northern Pulp’s forced closure and efforts to get a new effluent treatment plant built. …It would have been the first new pulp mill built in North America in over 20 years, competing with larger mills in Central and South America that have lower costs due to lower environmental standards, lower wages and greater access to wood fibre. …The Liverpool mill would have consumed all the byproduct of this province’s sawmills along with 2,268,000 tonnes of low-grade pulp wood annually.