All you have to do is slip the words ‘green’ or sustainable’ into a corporate moniker and you are...well, gold. That's Seneca Sustainable Energy’s idea. The company plans to fire up a power plant that will convert about 700 tons a day of logging leftovers and waste from its nearby sawmill into electricity. But it will also release more carbon dioxide and lung-damaging particulates than a comparable coal-fired power plant. And it's expected to receive millions in Oregon tax credits and qualify to meet the state's renewable power goals, just like non-polluting solar and wind. But forests don't waste anything. Forests don't create debri: what they create - when left in peace - is more forests. And that's exactly what we need because, well...we're shit out of forests, friendo. And when a company claims that "logging leftovers" are a "sustainable" source of fuel for generating energy...what seneca is talking about is more logging and sustainable revenues until the nation's last 5 percent of forested land is a moonscape or worse, an agribusiness tree farm. All this and tax breaks, too! Stand back from the trough because here come the hogs...
- KBOO