Dan Freeman. As a kid, Dan Freeman experimented with using alcohol to run lawnmowers and minibikes. (Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that parent-son conversation.) These days, he runs Dr. Dan's Alternative Fuel Werks, a Seattle-based biodiesel retail and distribution company with customers ranging from school districts to organic farmers to concerned individuals who want to drive greener. Grist recently spoke to the good doctor -- who got his nickname years ago from his father, an underemployed Ph.D. at the time -- about waste reduction, the power of local energy sources, and why biofuels are like …

If you live in a city of any size, you've likely seen them out there: boxy little '80s-era foreign cars, bumpers adorned with pro-ecology and anti-war slogans, and references to "grease." Even the fumes they emit may smell different: literally like French fries, in some cases; like generic used vegetable oil in others. Foh sizzle my fuel-izzle. Photo: iStockphoto Welcome to the small-scale biodiesel movement, a grassroots challenge to Big Oil and Big Ag. While corporate giants create fuel by refining crude oil and fermenting corn, these more modest initiatives focus on a feedstock no one else wants: waste cooking …

As the court-watchers (or even dabblers) amongst you are aware, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed preoccupied with the issue of standing during the recent oral argument in Massachusetts v. EPA. This debate has echoed in the blogosphere. Jonathan Adler argues, both on Volokh Conspiracy (it's a bit buried) and in an amicus brief (PDF), that global warming causes nonjusticiable, generalized injuries. Grist's own David Roberts questions whether a court order can provide Massachusetts with any relief. The Sierra Club's Executive Director, Carl Pope, believes that an adverse standing decision would have an enormous negative impact on environmental …

Global warming affects ocean's tiny plants, which could affect global warming Proving that big things do come in small packages, researchers say global warming could hobble the teeniest marine organisms, phytoplankton -- which could, in turn, lead to more warming. Whuh-huh? Well, these wee plants not only make a tasty sea snack, they provide a vital piece of climate-change resistance by absorbing carbon dioxide -- more than 100 million metric tons a day, accounting for about half of the photosynthesis occurring on the planet. But a decade worth of satellite data analyzed by a team from Oregon State University shows …

U.S. Interior lets oil-industry royalties slip away, investigation says An eight-month investigation by the U.S. Interior Department's inspector general reveals that Big Oil may be skirting millions of dollars in annual gas and oil royalties while Interior officials grease the skids. Some of the juicier findings: officials said they'd reviewed 72 percent of revenues from leases, but the total is closer to 9 percent of properties and 20 percent of companies. Audits seem to have dipped 22 percent since 2000 -- an exact count was apparently hard to come by -- and the computerized compliance system relies on the word …

The thing we discovered while researching our biofuels series is this: there's no end of freakin' information on this ever-evolving topic. We've put together a glossary and a resources page for you, our dear readers, but we know they are by definition incomplete. In fact, we heard yesterday from reader Kate McMahon, a research assistant with Friends of the Earth, who let us know about a beta version of an online biofuels database she's building. She'd love your help reviewing it -- check it out. We know there's a teeming underworld of biofuels info out there. That's why we want …

... got all liquored on that road house corn ... -- Tom Waits, "Gun Street Girl" Before it became widely used as a car fuel, ethanol was just grain liquor -- and the federal government was not particularly kind to it. We pledge allegiance to ADM. Shortly after the American Revolution, the new government imposed a draconian tax on the stuff, hoping to pay down wartime debt. Instead, it got the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, an insurrection eventually put down by forces led by President Washington himself. Similar hostility -- including the indignity of Prohibition, the 1920s-era federal ban on …

If you're like the rest of us, you've probably heard of E85 -- yet don't have the slightest idea what it is. Or if you do have an idea, it's, well, slight. But never fear, friends and neighbors: We've got the skinny on the corn-a-rific fuel that's increasingly on the tips of tongues and in the depths of gas tanks. Lend us your ears. Photo: Ohio Dept. of Agriculture So ... what is it? E85 is a motor fuel that is a blend of 15 percent unleaded gasoline and 85 percent ethanol, by volume. In the U.S., ethanol is usually …

Nothing but blue skies from now on? Photo: house.gov Great news! We can finally scratch "driving less" off our list of ways to curb global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil! Biofuels will soon not only replace much of our petroleum, but improve soil fertility and save the American farmer as well! Sound too good to be true? Well, yes. But you could be excused for buying the hype. Ethanol and biodiesel are being promoted as cures for our energy and environmental woes not just by flacks for corporations like Archer Daniels Midland, BP, and DuPont, but by …

Going bio with your auto doesn't mean you have to invest in some strange contraption your neighbors will stare at. In fact, upward of 4 million cars currently on the road in the United States are already compatible with E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. More automakers are making new E85-ready models -- known as flex-fuel vehicles -- every year. To top that off, so to speak, any gasoline-powered car can run on a 10 percent ethanol/90 percent gasoline blend -- in fact, the state of Minnesota requires that all gasoline sold there is of …