Russell Lands has been a world leader in constructing wood residue powered boiler plants.  Each installation was designed specifically to replace oil consumption. Forest products residue is renewable and in many cases is of a negative value.

          In 1975 Russell Lands submitted a feasibility study to a Fortune 500 textile corporation, proposing the installation of a wood fired boiler plant to replace oil consumption. The proposal guaranteed the corporation a 4-year supply of wood fuel at a fixed price- the equivalent, of $0.14 per gallon of oil.

          This resulted in the construction of the first non-forest products industry, wood-fired boiler plant in the United States in modern times.

          The resulting boiler plant, which supplies processed steam for the manufacturing of textile goods, burned 125,000 tons of sawmill residues per year, resulting in annual savings of more than 6,000,000 gallons of fuel oil.

          The price of oil quickly soared in the initial year from $0.17 to $0.70 per gallon and the project was an immediate success.  ECON constructed two more boiler plants in other states with long-term contracts for supplying wood residue fuel.

          Russell Lands has supplied over 6 million tons of wood fuel to the three steam plants.  This was accomplished without the cutting of one additional tree, by using sawmill and forest residue.  The use of this waste wood has saved the consumption of the equivalent of 250 million gallons of oil.

          The significant and prolonged income from these operations allowed Russell Lands to expand exponentially.