By year's end Hoover may not have to look any further than its streets and sidewalks in order to fuel its entire fleet with ethanol. The city collects tons of branches and limbs every year and that will soon turn into 350,000 gallons of the eco-friendly fuel. Mayor Tony Petelos says that combined with the cooking oil recycling program should mean Hoover will be self-sufficient in energy. "There's no other city in America that can do this. There's all this talk about what we should do about our energy sources. All you have to do is stop and look around." The city is in talks with Gulf Coast Energy which will open a plant in Livingston, Alabama in the coming weeks. The company will make ethanol from any type of wood scraps. Mayor Petelos says the city will buy the fuel back from the company at a reduced rate and save at least one dollar per gallon of fuel over what it's spending now. Final details are being worked out and it's likely the plant could start producing ethanol within a couple of weeks.
ABC 33/40 News to leave comments on news stories.