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Financial web site Kiplinger.com has put a biodiesel producer which uses a unique feedstock for biodiesel at the top of its “Five Green Up-and-Comers” stocks.

The article says that Nova Biosource Fuels use of animal fat, which would normally be thrown out, is at the head of the class:

Rising prices for the raw materials used to make biodiesel, known as feedstock, work in Nova’s favor. At least 75% of U.S. biodiesel is made from soybean oil, which costs about 31 cents per pound, up from 23 cents last year, and is expected to rise to as high as 36 cents per pound by 2008. But animal tallow, the fatty waste from meat processing, costs as little as 20 cents a pound, in part because there aren’t as many commercial uses for tallow as there are for soybean oil. Nova’s patented process can use 25 different feedstocks, including animal tallow, to produce biodiesel.

The Texas-based company started its first biodiesel plant in Iowa a year ago and hopes to soon have six more.

Country music legend Willie Nelson has been a longtime advocate of the American farmer and the American biofuels industry. While he’s been using a biodiesel-powered bus for his cross-country tour, one of his recent stops included New York City.

This story on the CNN Money web site says he was there to promote a new, non-profit group that supports biofuels:

Nelson was in town supporting the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a non-profit group founded by his wife Annie and actors Daryl Hannah and Woody Harrelson, among others.

The group recently kicked off its official launch with a concert at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, where Nelson played until well past midnight.

The article goes on to say that Nelson used biodiesel made from New York City cooking grease to fuel up his buses and get back on the road again.

Science is giving the desert regions of the world the chance to get in on the biodiesel boom. Oil-producing algae could hold more promise than conventional Midwestern crops now primarily used to make the green fuel.

This story in the El Paso (TX) Times says a company called Valcent Products has unveiled to the media its system of 10-foot-long water-filled plastic bags set up like a greenhouse in the West Texas desert that grows the oil-producing algae:

“We expect to produce 100,000 gallons (of vegetable oil) per acre per year,” which is a much higher yield than soybeans and other plants being used for biofuel, (president and CEO of Valcent Products Glenn) Kertz said Wednesday. He was showing off his patented Vertigro algae-growing system to news media, El Paso city officials and others at his company’s 6.2-acre research facility in the Upper Valley.

The article goes on to say the closed-loop system is the key to its success, keeping out foreign particles and maximizing the algae’s growth. Construction of a test algae biodiesel plant will begin later this year.

As naysayers try to bash the promise of biofuels, a man in Washington state is doing his part to spread the word through his brotherhood of biodiesel.

This story in the Othello (WA) Outlook says Bill Riley, the director of Big Bend Economic Development Council, has been making his own biodiesel for several years. He’s taking the approach that every little bit helps:

“It isn’t rocket science,” he said, referring to making biodiesel fuel at home. “It’s easily done.”

“You can make a processor for a couple hundred bucks — all the guys I’ve met who make their own processors have all used different methods,” he said. “And some guys are making biodiesel fuel for less than a buck a gallon.

Riley admits that making biodiesel is a bit addictive. But he adds the real addictive part is spreading the Gospel of biodiesel to more members of the biodiesel brotherhood.