Renewable Fuel in Stump County

About ten years ago our local tree hugger, who is always trying to do something to help the environment, decided to build a car that didn’t use expensive imported oil and burned renewable fuel.  He borrowed every dime he could and spent every night working in his barn.  He would take one night a week off and stop by the Yak n Snack restaurant and tell us how his project was coming.

A few months ago he announced his car was finished and that as soon as his patent was registered he would have a showing.  Well, we were surprised to say the least, old Fred has never finished one of his projects much less filed for a patent.  If he is telling the truth, and his car doesn’t use gas it may save the country and put Stump County on the map.

This week, instead of showing up at the Yak n Snack, he headed straight to Ludd’s Local Likkers and Libations. By the time we got there he was pretty steamed up and pretty likkered up.  Turns out he finished his car but they won’t give him a patent. We took him home to sleep it off.  A couple of hours later we thought we heard a storm coming.  Bustah looked out and said a big black cloud was moving in from down Fred’s way.  Seems like Fred had sobered up a little and had fired up his new car and was bringing it down to show us.

The first thing we noticed was the smell.  We hadn’t smelled nothing like that since Old Blue got in a fight with two skunks in Clem Breedalot’s three-holer outhouse.

Old Fred had taken the boiler offen an old steam tractor and put in on the old county school bus.  Then he fired up that boiler with trash he got from the gully behind town we all call the City Dump.

Fred says he can go fifty miles on a bus load of garbage, that garbage is a renewable resource and it doesn’t use any oil.  The only problem is the smoke and Fred had planned on buying carbon credits like that Al Gore feller.

Those credits work something like this.  A man that uses a bunch of oil and resources can buy credits from folks who are conserving energy and protecting the environment and pretend he is doing the right thing.  Then he can blow all of the smoke he wants.