Another example, this time from Reuters, of a country forging ahead with clean-fuel legislation that includes biodiesel:

The Philippines’ biofuels law came into effect on Sunday with little fanfare or information and only a partial rollout of the much-vaunted 1 percent coconut blend diesel.

Motorists were surprised to hear use of the cleaner fuel was now mandatory.

The government seems to have confidence in the ability of the private industry to handle the education of consumers, once the laws have corrected the market forces back to a more neutral position and less dominated by petroleum-based interests.

Chemrez, the largest bio-diesel producer in the country, has some interesting data on their site:

The firm’s premium coco-bio-diesel brand, BioActiv, has been tested in various government and public laboratories worldwide and has been found compliant with accepted national and international standards for bio-diesel.

ChemrezTech’s successful completion and passing of the IMS certification requirements consolidated three aspects of manufacturing excellence– adherence to global quality standards, complying with environmental laws, regulations, and promotion of a safe and healthy working environment.

ChemrezTech is the first bio-diesel plant to get all three certifications and within the shortest time for all IMS-certified firms.

It should not take long for results, including new market opportunities, to come to fruition. I suppose many people had no idea how they could improve things on their own but now they see a better path ahead, as the Reuters article points out:

Motorists said they would be willing to shell out extra if it meant less pollution.

“If it will serve the environment, why not?” said Jimmy Gochang, 70. “The air here is really terrible.”

Shell out extra? Funny. Not only will prices decrease, given the ubiquity of natural oils (the Philippines can also produce diesel fuel from sugar, jathropa, palm oil, soybeans and fishing industries), but local and global competition for transportation fuels are already fundamentally altered. For example, Chemrez benefits from the largest supply of coconut oil in the world as it now exports their diesel fuel to Germany.

Autoblog reports that the company that makes the fastest supercar in the world has a new engine that meets global emissions standards:

Ultima’s efforts start with Chevy’s LS7 lump from the Z06, which rocks 505 HP standard. Ultima then adds their own exhaust, for a boost up to 565 HP. The camshafts are swapped out, raising the horse count to 650. Finally, a supercharger provides the 150 HP coup de grace, for a finally tally of 800. The entire package meets global emissions standards, as does every step in between.

Amazing.

Diesel is amazing stuff. I was just reading about how the latest generation of cars can run on straight vegetable oil (SVO), biodiesel or diesel without any muss or fuss by drivers — single tank systems are cool. It’s about $2000 to convert a regular diesel to be able to run on any of the three fuels. That’s different than in the past when people had to choose between a diesel or SVO setup.

Even more shocking is the fact that the Disney empire has gone biodiesel:

For Disneyland, the switch to biodiesel saves as much as 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel each year, while potentially reducing carbon dioxide emissions by up to 80 percent, Disneyland Resort spokesman Bob Tucker said Monday.

“The decision, once we knew the trains would perform well, was an easy one,” said Frank Dela Vara, technical director for Disneyland’s Environmental Affairs.

[…]

“We want other companies and the people that come and visit to be inspired by what we’re doing, and practice their own ways of improving the environment,” Tucker said.

Great. Now if they could just stop trying to trademark stuff in the public domain and stop criminalization of storytelling and information sharing.