Monday, May 18, 2009

Biomass, wildfire and climate change: Protesting like it's 1989 - OregonLive.com

Biomass, wildfire and climate change: Protesting like it's 1989 - OregonLive.com: "This isn't just a matter of a few die-hard environmentalists in Eugene demanding that the Eugene Water & Electric Board refuse to buy the electricity that Seneca is planning to produce -- at two-thirds the cost of wind power, by the way, and less than a quarter of the cost of solar. This same debate is happening in the halls of Congress, where environmental groups are trying to write restrictions into the energy bill to exclude renewable energy produced from biomass taken from public lands.

The term of derision now is 'greenwashing,' and the cynical claim is that Seneca and the handful of other Oregon timber companies still in business are only interested in biomass and renewable energy because they see it as a key to get back to clear-cutting public lands.

Seneca plans to generate electricity by burning sawdust and other wastes from its mills, along with slash from the company's timberlands. But what exactly would be so threatening, so wrong, about a timber company like Seneca converting some of the brush on public lands into renewable energy? Which is the greater threat to Northwest forests, and to global climate"

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