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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.

This story on The Farmer.com says the move is welcomed as making an efficient form of transportation, mass transit, into an even greener form of moving people:

The action, which is part of Metro Transit’s Go Greener Initiative, will reduce its consumption of diesel fuel by 1.2 million gallons. By March 2008, Metro Transit plans to increase its biodiesel use to 20%, thereafter, alternating between a 20% (B20) summer blend and a 10% (B10) blend during the winter months.

The action comes just a few weeks after Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty announced his state would increase its use of biodiesel to 20% of all diesel used by 2015.

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 article in Wallace’s Farmer the seminars will offer information on the best management practices of blending, storing and using biodiesel year-round, including cold weather use.

Here’s the rundown of locations:

* Sept. 10: Mason City, Best Western Holiday Lodge
* Sept. 11: Spencer, Spencer Golf and Country Club
* Sept. 12: Dubuque, Best Western Midway Hotel
* Sept. 13: Des Moines, Adventureland Inn
* Sept. 14: Red Oak, Red Coach Inn

The seminars run from 8:30 am (including registration and continental breakfast) until noon. They’re free… if you register by September 5th. Otherwise, it will cost you $20.

To register or for more information, call the Iowa Soybean Association, 515-251-8640.

Speaker of the Kansas House, Representative Melvin Neufeld (R-Ingalls) says the nation’s future of energy independence starts with places such as Kansas’ first operating biodiesel plant at Sedgwick, Kansas.

This story from the WIBW-TV web site says Healy Biodiesel, Inc is using soybean oil and recycled cooking oils collected from Kansas restaurants:

“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.”

The plant creates a B99 blend which is 99% biodiesel and 1% petroleum diesel that can be used in any diesel-fuelled vehicle without any conversion. Annual production is projected at 500,000 gallons. Healy sells the biodiesel fuel for $2.50 per gallon – about .50 lower then current diesel fuel prices.

A state commission in New Hampshire is considering the viability of the green fuel in the state.

This story from New Hampshire Public Radio says the group made up of representatives from state agencies, oil industry producers, distributors and dealers, along with scientists and environmentalists is looking into the issue:

New Castle State Representative David Borden chairs The New Hampshire Biodiesel Commission.

Borden says that the goal of the panel is to spur the use of bio-diesel in the state. “Just now, they’re already using bio-diesel in one D.O.T. Truck, Department of Transportation truck, but if they start using it in more vehicles, and if they start using it in school vehicles and state buildings for heating, that will begin turning the tide in favor of bio-diesel”

As you might remember from my post back on April 8th, Borden wants 20 percent of the heating oil used in the state to be biodiesel. One of the biggest obstacles the commission is trying to overcome is the higher cost of biodiesel. Hopefully, the area will open up more biodiesel plants to solve that problem.

Researchers at the University of Florida are looking into the feasibility of using the jatropha tree as a source for biodiesel.

This story from the University’s web site, says the plant is a native of Mexico and produces an oil that is ideal for biodiesel:

“For maybe a year and a half now, I have been working on an idea that here in deep South Florida we can grow a biodiesel crop that does not conflict with food and that we have a comparative advantage in growing,” said Roy Beckford, a Lee County extension agent who specializes in sustainable farm development.

Beckford, who works for the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has been pushing Jatropha as an alternate crop to South Florida farmers the past couple years through IFAS newsletters.

The hardy trees can live for 50 years and can be ready for twice-a-year harvests just 18 months after planting. Each acre can produce 600 to 1,000 gallons of oil a year… although researchers are working on even more productive varieties. It even grows in land not suitable for other types of agriculture.

Just recently, 1,500 Jatropha seedlings were donated to Lee County by a company called Dream Fuels in hopes of getting the plant established as a biodiesel feedstock in Florida.