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On a sunny afternoon in this rapidly growing mountain city, craft-beer drinkers line up for a "pubcycle tour" on a 13-person pedal-powered trolley on wheels.

They depart just a few blocks from one of Asheville's certified green restaurants that uses solar panels, buys wind-power credits and composts its waste. Within walking distance is an organic furniture store and a vegan restaurant that makes its own kombucha and feeds the homeless for free.

In the middle of a red region, Asheville is a pocket of tie-dye. And as the community grows larger, old and new residents are clamoring for environmentally responsible businesses to match their ideals and lifestyles.

The city is a "bohemian kind of place," explained Tom Williams, director of external relations with Duke Energy Corp., the parent company of Asheville's electric utility, Duke Energy Progress.

So it came as a surprise when dozens of people stayed late into the night at a wonky public meeting in January to push back on the company's plans for shuttering the coal plant that powers the region.

Duke officials proposed replacing the plant with nearly twice the amount of natural-gas-fired power, and local environmental advocates cried foul. They were happy to see the coal plant go but disappointed with its fossil-fuel replacement.

They raised concerns about methane emissions produced when natural gas is extracted and transported from shale plays using hydraulic fracturing. They argued building so much natural-gas-fired power will lock the region into using it for years, even if cleaner electricity sources become feasible on a large scale in the near future. Some also believe natural gas will not stay as cheap for consumers as government agencies like the U.S. Energy Information Administration predict.

Duke, however, saw the switch as the only reasonable option and a great environmental victory.

The debate that ensued in Asheville is familiar around the country, although it rarely enjoys mainstream media space and doesn't often get the kind of local, grass-roots attention seen in Asheville.

On the national level, environmental advocates are protesting large-scale pipelines and urging power providers to think of natural gas only as a short-term transitional fuel. But the shift to gas is forging ahead, one project at a time, in front of state regulators who must decide what is in the best interest of consumers.

Source: scientificamerican