Over the course of the next few years, Buncombe County will get several new biodiesel pumps, a couple of ethanol filling stations and up to 15 new compressed-natural-gas stations (read more in the Green Scene, in this week’s Xpress).
Meanwhile, as climate change and dependency on foreign oil loom as increasingly more complicated issues, the image of alternative-fuel proponents as scruffy, Birkenstock-clad science geeks running their VW buses on used fryer oil is fading fast. The new alternative-fuel vehicle driver may be a Hollywood celebrity zipping around in a hybrid, an upper-class liberal who has just purchased the latest CNG car, or even a NASCAR race-car driver. According to a recent article in Time magazine, NASCAR is considering a switch to ethanol, a corn-based renewable fuel. And it wouldn’t be the first racing series to go green: Beginning this season, the Indy Racing League’s IndyCar Series will race on 100 percent ethanol.
— Rebecca Bowe, editorial assistant
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