Two years ago, Reynolds, Indiana (pop. 547), was slowly dying. So governor Mitch Daniels hatched a plan: Rechristen Reynolds as BioTown, USA. The project aims to transform the burg into a showcase of the state’s eco-potential, with home-brewed ethanol and biodiesel for cars, electricity generated from cornstalks and soybean stubble, and methane gas derived from manure - hog and human. Of course, Daniels isn’t the first official to see lush economic pastures in small-town green energy: A new business park in Medway, Maine, plans to use biomass from the region’s forests to run a hyper-efficient electric plant, and the beleaguered lumber town of Aberdeen, Washington, is constructing a biodiesel plant. But when the optimism clears, will these well-intentioned efforts be sustainable? In Reynolds, the local gas station owner had to sell to an outside investor because he couldn’t afford to install an ethanol tank to serve the town’s 171 new flex-fuel vehicles. And in Carthage, Missouri, a facility that produces biodiesel from turkey carcasses has been shut down repeatedly because of its nauseating odor. “It’s a great idea,” says a town resident. “I just wish it was somewhere else.”
- Lisa Margonelli
credit: Oksana Badrak
START
Welcome to BioTown, USA
The Best: Sci-Fi Flick Fashions
Updata: Lab-Grown Diamonds Make the Cut
And the Food? Out of This World.
