Firefighters in Charlottesville, Virginia will be rushing off to fires, running their fire engines on biodiesel.
This story from WCAV-TV quotes Charlottesville Fire Chief, Charles Werner as pointing out the benefits of the green fuel:
[T]he fire department is changing [its] larger vehicles to run on biodiesel 20. Which means that 20% of the diesel is now an alternative fuel. “The unique thing about that is it reduces the amount of overall diesel fuel we’re using and it makes a cleaner burning type fuel as well.” The fire department hopes to have all of there larger vehicles burning the biodiesel fuel within 6 months. Fire chief werner also plans to add additional hybrid vehicles the fleet, in applicable positions like fire inspector.
“I think its been an interesting challenge but it’s well worth the effort”
The department has also added a Ford Escape Hybrid to its fleet to make the department that much greener.
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.
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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