llinois' Great Energy Hunt: Driving The State In Search Of Corn, Coal And Me-First Politics

By Jim Tankersley
Tribune national correspondent
Published June 17, 2007

MANTENO, Ill. -- Coal burrows in gentle hills near Carbondale, corn sprouts ankle-high from the black earth around Bloomington, and outside Urbana, Shaq-size grass sways in a professor's test field.

Here, in an outdoor showroom lined with gleaming green tractors, customers are the bumper crop. An alternative fuels boom is boosting sales at the Hogan Walker dealership, but the manager has no time to talk details. "Sorry," he explains. "These guys want to buy something."

Some 700 miles away on Capitol Hill, nearly everyone wants to buy into energy independence. Democrats and Republicans have made weaning America from foreign oil a priority, in the name of national security and relief from voter wrath born of soaring gasoline prices. Congress took up sprawling energy legislation last week. Defining the problem is the easy part. The question isn't whether lawmakers will try to accelerate the country's move away from oil. Rather, it's what fuels the nation will move toward.

Through the prism of Illinois, from Cairo to Zion, you can see nearly every important aspect of the debate on energy policy -- from coal country to the Corn Belt to suburban Chicago's high-tech research hubs.

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