More and more this state is becoming home to people who demand all the comforts of modern life but who refuse to shoulder the burdens required to produce them. We're becoming like the fat guy who wants to lose weight -- as long as he can eat whatever he wants.

The latest chapter in North Carolina's growing record of civic selfishness occurred early Tuesday morning in the Buncombe County town of Woodfin, a few miles north of Asheville. In a room packed with 150 or so people, the town's Board of Adjustment rejected Progress Energy's request for a conditional use permit to build a small, 130-megawatt peak power plant.

"Peak" is crucial here. It means that the plant would operate only in times of peak electricity demand. The rest of the time, approximately 90 percent of the year, it would remain cold. This limited operation is more than a promise. It would be stipulated in permits issued by the county, state, and the Western North Carolina Regional Air Quality Agency. If the plant were to exceed assigned hours, the utility would be vulnerable to hefty fines.

But hosting a low-sulfur oil-fired power plant -- the cleanest of its kind and one that would run only 10 percent of the year -- is apparently too much of a sacrifice for the people of Woodfin and Buncombe County. Warren Wilson College economics professor Susan Kask reflected the opposition's weak argument when, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times, she told the board, "It could be the cleanest plant in the world. It doesn't matter."

It does matter. Electricity isn't magic. It has to generated.

Opponents may also want to glance at a census table. Buncombe County is booming. Its population has grown nearly 10 percent since 2000. Electricity generated from windmills and pig-poop won't come close to filling the power needs of approximately 20,000 new county residents.

Progress Energy can't count on buying power from neighboring states, either. Utilities are getting out of the business of selling electricity to each other. The primary reason Progress needs the Woodfin plant is to replace 250 megawatts of contract-provided power that will expire in 2009. Progress has been able to replace only half that amount with new contracts.

As expected, some people testified that conservation could render the plant unnecessary. I have more faith in Duke University's ability to win a national football championship than I do in conservation's capacity to produce meaningful energy savings.

And yet, the proposed peak power plant provides conservationists with a real-world opportunity to put up or shut up. Here's the challenge: Let Progress Energy build its plant. Because peakers are the most expensive plants to run, utilities operate them only when demand leaves no other choice. Thus, if conservationists can reduce electricity consumption to the degree they claim can be achieved, the Woodfin plant will never be fired up. You guys would win; end of debate.

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The self-centered, Not in My Back Yard affliction isn't unique to Western North Carolina. On Monday, protesters came to the Scotland County commissioners meeting demanding to voice their opposition to a regional landfill.

The project has been placed on hold thanks to a year-long moratorium imposed by the General Assembly. The moratorium was in response to opponents who have yet to present evidence that new, environmentally sensitive and heavily regulated landfills pose the risks they claim. Legislators were spooked by complaints that these landfills would attract trash from neighboring states.

Thank goodness other states don't share our island mentality. If they did, most of us would have to walk to work. North Carolina is one of the few states that contributes essentially zip to the nation's energy supply. But true to form, if Congress once again allows domestic offshore energy exploration, the alarmists will mobilize to ensure that North Carolina will block any attempt to tap the considerable natural gas deposits thought to exist just beyond our coastline.

Just like the fat guy, we North Carolinians like having our cake and eating it too.

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