Last week Serena Batten wrote about Safeway opening a biodiesel pump in Ballard.  Her article is one of many recent stories demonstrating how the Pacific Northwest is taking a leading role in building a petroleum independent future.  In late February, Imperium Renewables announced a massive round of funding. The Seattle biodiesel company, which has been mentioned on WorldChanging previously just raised $214 million in funding, roughly an equal combination of equity and debt financing.  In July, the company plans to open a 100 million gallon biodiesel plant in Grays Harbor county with at least four additional plants planned for the near future in Hawaii and other parts of the U.S.  The Grays Harbor facility will be the largest biodiesel plant in the country.  According to the Wall St. Journal, the company's goal is to have a capacity of 400 million gallons by the end of 2008.  The company's goals, as per founder John Plaza, are to "build large, feed stock agnostic biodiesel production facilities close to the market demand". 

Imperium is not the only local company that is in the biodiesel business.  Propel Biofuels, a Seattle startup that helps gas stations setup biodiesel pumps recently announced, the hiring of a new CEO and plans to open 10 to 15 biodiesel locations in Western Washington in the next eight months.  This will only result in a further increase in the number of biodiesel  facilities in the Seattle area. 

As you may have read previously on Worldchanging, there are many solutions to preserve our environment and gain independence from a petroleum economy.  Hopefully, the day is not too far where we in the Pacific Northwest will have multiple alternative energy sources to choose from at reasonable costs.

Sources
John Cook (Seattle-PI) on Imperium
John Cook (Seattle-PI) on Propel Biofuels
John Cook (Seattle-PI) on Safeway
Inside Greentech

Previously on Worldchanging
Serena Batten
Biodiesel 101

Picture courtesy of hAdamsky under a Creative Commons license