Moncure
PIEDMONT BIOFUELS CO-OP TOUR
PIEDMONT BIOFUELS COOPIn these doomsday times, we find individuals and groups looking for ways to live more lightly on the planet, whether through veganism, bicycling or even early vasectomies. For its part, the Piedmont Biofuels Co-op has been educating us, with a quintessentially American messianic capitalist fervor, about how we can run diesel engines on little more than reformulated restaurant grease, and they’ve become the area’s primary supplier (and the one that Willie Nelson calls when his biodiesel tour bus passes through). For nearly three years, Piedmont has existed as a commercial enterprise, producing 4,000-gallon batches of almost 100 percent biofuel, thus putting it a long way toward its goal of producing one million gallons a year. Along the way, other businesses have hitched their biodiesel wagon to this enterprise, including a hydroponics greenhouse, a vermiculture (worm-growing) operation and an organic farm. Still, bio-skeptics note that there isn’t enough vegetable waste to come anywhere close to supplanting our dependance on fossil fuels, at current rates of consumption. Find out what this fascinating cooperative has to say about this and more by going to one of its weekly tours, which commence at 1 p.m. every Sunday of the year. The co-op is located at 4783 Moncure-Pittsboro Road, Moncure, and the tours are free. For more information, visit biofuels.coop. David Fellerath
