There is a house in Atlanta, literally a Big House, that is framed on all sides by the shade of trees and set deep behind a wrought-iron gate. It's a hidden house: you could blow past it easily if you went cruising by the Yarab Shriners Center, with its big big shriners statue out front. Inside is a group of activist-artist folk who are holding down an all-inclusive, all-creative space in the heart of the neverending sprawl of Atlanta. They were our hosts for the week of our event at the Tupac Shakur Foundation, and we were grateful for their generosity.

We had been taking nightly wanderings through the streets of Atlanta with our hosts when suddenly we noticed: plastic bags over individual gas pumps. Numbers removed from station price signs. A fuel shortage.

Ironically, when you're working on green solutions, there's a lot of apocalypse talk. Part of what makes sustainability so attractive is the threat of the collapse of the oil economy. Food shortages, ghetto suburbs, the imagination goes wild. There are books and documentaries that analyze this potential future crisis: Powerdown, The End of Suburbia, The Party's Over, and Endgame are just some of the many.

So suddenly we were in Atlanta in fuel scare, with rumors circulating about the shortage spreading across the southwest. There were even parked lines of cars in front of the few stations with fuel. Fortunately, what felt like an eerie kind of foreshadowing turned out to be a one-city hassle. I spent all the next day on the phone to find: distributors in Mississippi, New Orleans and Tennessee were fine, the shortage was confined to Atlanta. There were even some folks in Gordon, Georgia who are willing to set aside a hundred or so gallons of B50 for us, just special.

So off we went to Alterra Biofuels--  a 15 million gallon biodiesel plant and a part of the official "Good 'Ol Boy" network. We learned from Plant Manager Tim about how they make biodiesel from local soy, chicken and beef tallow. Alterra was kind enough to donate our fill-up as well as two cases of a biodiesel additive they created. The men toured us around the plant, showed us their water-less process, and generally made us feel right at home. We thanked them gratefully and left them with samples from some of our other donors: Mary's Gone Crackers, Clif Bar, Steez and High Country Kombucha.

When we returned to Atlanta, we found plastic bags still covering pumps and many stations still shut down. We, in contrast, had the joy of a full tank of domestic biodiesel and some good knowledge earned. We had a big group breakfast with the folks from the Big House and left town to reconnect with the rest of our crew in Knoxville. They'd been settling in at the United Mountain Defense house, publicizing for our event with the University of Tennessee.