How Green is Asheville?

Ray Cockrell remembers the first time he heard about the possibility of biodiesel coming to town.

"About five years ago, I received a phone call in the middle of the night from these guys who were all excited about biodiesel," says Cockrell, who serves as the adviser to the auto shop on the Warren Wilson College campus. "I could hear them all cheering and clanking their glasses together in the background. They told me, 'We're going to start up a biodiesel filling station here in Asheville.' Everyone was thinking about it back then. Today, we've got a pump at the auto shop, and I'm one of their customers."

The Blue Ridge Biofuels cooperative is just one example of the kinds of things that have contributed to Asheville's alternative/eco-friendly image. Factor in an abundant supply of locally grown organic food, a recycling program that helps the city divert 45 percent of its waste from the landfill, and growing numbers of houses certified by the NC HealthyBuilt Homes Program springing up, and Asheville's "green" reputation seems well deserved. Meanwhile, the Asheville City Development Plan 2025 – the official road map for the city's future – espouses "smart growth" principles, improved air quality, green building and increased use of alternative fuels.

All those strategies are hallmarks of what's broadly termed sustainability. Once a slogan championed by Birkenstock-clad environmentalists, the concept of "going green" has today become the buzzword for a new wave in urban design and city planning, with metropolitan areas across the country launching image-altering green experiments. In Chicago, more than 2 million square feet of vegetated "green rooftops" have sprouted up. In Portland, Ore., fare-free zones encourage public-transit use. And in Austin, Texas, a combination of photovoltaic arrays and wind power is expected to generate 20 percent of the city's electricity by 2020.

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http://www.mountainx.com/

Check out what we've been doing here at CMU:
http://www.cmu.edu/greenpractices/

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Here are two of our green roofs.

I'm putting this on our company's enviornmental website.

and modifies them to run on biodiesel - he sez they get >30 mpg and last forever....