If you are determined enough to get past all the paperwork, and want to stay on their grid at all, you are required to sell them your power at an extreme discount rate, which they will then sell back to you at the normal rate, thus negating any benefit to putting your power in the grid. The destruction of complete ecosystems for pulp and paper consumes vast amounts of forested area. The pulp can be used to make paper , the seeds for food and the hurds for plastics. Researchers have not been able to discover the cause of the dieback, but among the suspects they cite are beetles, fungi, and weather, either singly or in combination. Certain beetles are always present in the dead trees, but it is not known whether they are the cause of death or merely take opportunity of the dying trees.
More information is available here and here .
Perhaps more interesting than the review itself, there are sure to be many comments by techies, libertarians, and cynics alike. Of late, the comments on Slashdot tend to be obnoxious, arrogant, and inflammatory, but also interesting, and occasionally instightful. Could make for a good discussion. You must be signed up and logged in to do this.