In an effort to get back on the road, Shared Route… a colorful, biodiesel bus that runs between Portland, Oregon and Olympia and Seattle, Washington… will run on vegetable oil.
This blog post in the Seattle (WA) Post-Intelligencer says the bus service known for its welcoming arms to bikes and pets… as well as the human passengers… has been suspended for a while until this latest idea to run it more efficiently came up:
Company director Jacob Rosenblum has decided to cut costs by a third. He’ll do it by converting the bus to run on vegetable oil.
A vegetable oil tank with related equipment and insurance, totaling $5,000, are needed to keep Shared Route on the road, according to the company’s media release.
Shared Route says its friendly atmosphere has won it dozens of devotees, who are hoping the bus will get its wheels back on I-5 very soon.
Illinois-based Navistar International Corporation, the maker of diesel hybrid school buses and trucks, has won the prestigious 2007 Blue Sky Award from WestStart-CALSTART, the nation’s leading advanced transportation technologies consortium. Navistar was recognized for its contributions to commercial hybrid-diesel technology.
“I understand it’s an uphill battle, and I’m going to stay in the fight,” said ITAC Engineers & Constructors Senior Vice President Rick Starnes, a key player in the project who spent more than 20 hours last week walking Brentwood to discuss the plant with residents. “I wouldn’t work this hard if I didn’t think this was the right project for this area.”
The exective director of the 
Blume, who sounds like one pretty interesting character, is the author of a soon-to-be-released book called “Alcohol Can Be A Gas,” subtitled Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century. 
The 
NEVC Executive Director Phil Lampert says these include some of the most popular vehicle models. “From a humble beginning of less than 500 FFVs in 1993, we expect that more than 750,000 such FFVs will be produced in the coming year,” he said.
Oil-giant Texas and wind-energy giant Denmark are swapping information are their respective strong suits in energy.
Metro Transit… the public transportation service for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area… is raising the amount of biodiesel it is using in its vehicles to a 10% blend. For the last 14 months, Metro Transit has been using a 5% blend.
The Iowa Biodiesel Board and Iowa Soybean Association, along with the commercial biodiesel maker and biodiesel plant maker, Renewable Energy Group are offering a series of biodiesel management seminars in different parts of the state.
“This is the type of alternative energy production the Kansas Legislature envisioned when it approved the Soybean Checkoff several years ago as a way to fund research to find potential uses for soy,” Speaker Neufeld said. “This moves our country one step closer to freeing itself of dependence on foreign oil. Instead of importing oil and diesel, we have a company that is meeting energy needs and keeping the profit here in Kansas.”