Seattle Times, Living:
May 31, 2006

Cool cars and new fuels to run them

Posted by Kristi Heim at 06:48 AM

Technologies focused on transportation and alternative energy are getting a lot of attention this week. Today, a two-day conference co-sponsored by Microsoft and the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center for Regional Development gets started with a curious mix of people and topics, including border security, hybrid cars and biodiesel fuel. Speakers include Martin Tobias, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, Slade Gorton, Maria Cantwell and Adam Smith.

Today is also the day Issaquah-based Green Power is set to demonstrate a mobile plant that it says can convert solid and liquid waste to diesel fuel. That demo is happening all the way in Wyoming, so we can't watch.

A car from Western Washington University's Vehicle Research Institute gave a new definition to domestically produced power, running on biomethane gas made from local manure to win honors at the Tour de Sol car show this month. VRI also won a nice little $10,000 check from BP's Cherry Point Refinery for alternative fuel research.