Green's been in the air of late, and this year's North American International Auto Show was no exception. While the usual hyped sports cars and solid trucks weren't exactly in short supply, nearly every concept car toed the eco line. Fuel cells, biodiesel and batteries powered most. Ethanol was popular despite continual rumors of a looming corn shortage (probably less of a problem in the "conceptual" realm). Even Hummer promised a FlexFuel system for its HX concept. Of course, none of this means power will be sacrificed.

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It sounds as if someone just dropped a tricycle into a meat grinder. I’m sitting inside a narrow conference room at a research facility in Bristol, Connecticut, chatting with Joseph Longo, the founder and CEO of Startech Environmental Corporation. As we munch on takeout Subway sandwiches, a plate-glass window is the only thing separating us from the adjacent lab, which contains a glowing caldera of “plasma” three times as hot as the surface of the sun.

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Big lumps of sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that's exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Consumption of the fossil fuel-the main source of greenhouse gas and a major contributor to acid rain, smog and mercury poisoning-will hit 10.6 billion tons a year by 2030, a near doubling of the 5.4 billion tons burned in 2003, according to the agency.

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For more on the Civic GX's natural-gas powertrain and the innovative home-fueling station that keeps it going at a fraction of the cost of gasoline, launch the slideshow.

Behold the car that could displace the Toyota Prius as the eco-ride of choice. The new natural-gas-powered Honda Civic GX uses domestically produced fuel–the same stuff your gas stove burns–that costs as little as one third the price of gasoline. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy calls it the cleanest-burning internal-combustion vehicle on Earth.

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