Pasta fuel
In the never-ending search for new and innovative ways to make a buck from our native forests, one enterprising shipping company decided to try sending a load of Gippsland and WA woodchips to Italy for fuelling a biomass-burning electricity plant.
After enquiries, we were told that it was a financial disaster and they lost out very badly. This isn’t surprising, considering it’s not viable to cart chips any distance within Australia for the same purpose.
The idea of exporting forests to help boil Italian pasta should now be permanently wiped off their list of brainstorms.