In a move that can only be seen as a bold one to boost renewable fuels north of the border, the Canadian government has pledged to put $500 million into development of fuels from renewable sources.
This story from The Canadian Press says the money is going to be put in a development fund managed by Sustainable Development Technology Canada:
The fund will support up to 40 per cent of eligible costs for the establishment of new, large demonstration facilities for production of the fuels.
Contributions will be repayable, based on free cash flow over a 10-year period after completion of the project.
The news is being welcomed by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, which says it will build on the environmental and economic benefits of fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Officials in the state of Maryland have pledged to buy more vehicles that run on ethanol and biodiesel and triple the number of hybrids in the state’s fleet by 2011. 
Ethanol producer POET is getting ready to open yet another ethanol plant… this time, a 65-million-gallon-a-year facility near Portland, Indiana.
Monsanto’s Gro-Ethanol Program, in conjunction with GreenField Ethanol, is giving corn farmers in Ontario a new market.
“If this does come to fruition, there is going to be some winnowing of the ethanol industry. Some plants are going to go out of business,” said the report’s author, David Peters. He teaches in the university’s agricultural economics department.
Australian researchers have found that diesel exhaust does much more damage to people’s health than does biodiesel’s exhaust.
Associate Professor Leigh Ackland, Associate Head of Deakin’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences, led a team of researchers who compared the effects of diesel exhaust and biodiesel exhaust on human airway cells. They found that diesel exhaust damaged and killed the cells, while biodiesel exhaust had little effect.
To whet your appetite for the upcoming International Congress on Biodiesel (as if you needed anything else to get you excited about the green fuel!), the organizers of the November gathering in Austria are offering a new podcast.
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Oil giant BP has lived up to its motto of going “beyond petroleum” with its $5 million gift to the University of Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources… $2 million of that going to wind energy development.