Most who spoke during a public hearing at the Macon County Courthouse on Duke Energy’s proposed rate increases were not pleased with the prospect of another uptick on their electric bills and lambasted Duke Energy representatives for wanting to use the increase to pay for recently built fossil fuel plants and pay higher dividends to investors.

Greenies, tree-huggers, granolas and old hippies are mothers, dads and grandmoms too. And there is a sincere desire to live and raise our children in a cleaner, safer, sustainable world. But until we greenies achieve the economical and political clout of Exxon-Mobile, Toyota and/or the governments of the G8 countries, face it, it will be utility, power and profit that will fuel the move to alternative energy.

Over the next few weeks in The Naturalist’s Corner, I’m going to be exploring different aspects of the alternative and green energy movement.

By Michael Beadle

North Carolina’s population is expected to rise by nearly 3 million people in the next two decades. As we use up more and more natural resources like oil and coal, how will we handle the energy needs of the future?

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Prices at the gas pump began falling last month with the announcement that a new pocket of deep-sea oil had been found off the Gulf of Mexico. Locally, regular unleaded hit a mere $2.25 per gallon, or in some cases even less, such as in Maggie Valley where the new Quality Oil Co. station posted prices of $2.02.

By Michael Beadle

Cherokee now has a biodiesel gas pump at its filling station to fuel up Tribal transit and maintenance vehicles as well as buses from the Cherokee Boys Club.

Talitha and Louis Mes erected a 100-foot tall wind tower on a ridge above Crabtree last week to generate environmentally-friendly power for their home, marking the first privately installed wind turbine in this part of the mountains.