In East Lansing, fire trucks are green.
Recycling trucks are filled with more renewable resources than empty milk cartons and collapsed cardboard. There's even a city wood chipper that runs on soy.
For the last year, city staff has fueled East Lansing's diesel-powered machines with biodiesel — which blends normal diesel fuel with an alternative made from plant oils.
On Thursday, East Lansing Mayor Sam Singh partnered with scientists, farmers and rock stars outside the MSU Auditorium to promote the benefits of the environmentally friendly fuel.
The event was part of the Campus Consciousness Tour, which stopped at the Auditorium on Thursday with rock band Guster headlining.
Guster runs its tour bus on B20 — a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and standard petroleum-based fuel. The same blend is used in East Lansing and MSU trucks.
The band is hoping to drive down prices and increase availability by raising awareness about the alternative fuel, said singer and guitarist Ryan Miller, filling in as the group's spokesman after bandmate Adam Gardner had to be sent to the hospital for stitches after cutting his head.
"It's a realistic option, and you don't have to be a big band to use biodiesel. You don't even have to be a very good band," joked Brian Rosenworcel, Guster's drummer.
Guster has been using B20 since its tour started two weeks ago and plans to continue to do so in the future.
Another effort to encourage renewable technologies began two weeks ago — MSU's newly created Office of Bio-based Technologies — and aims to link the university's research resources to stimulate Michigan's bioeconomy.
If scientists find creative ways to take advantage of plants such as soybeans and canola, the nation's need for diesel could eventually be met entirely by biofuels, said Steve Pueppke, the office's director.
MSU has been using biodiesel in farm equipment since 2000 and is now fueling almost 100 percent of the university's diesel vehicles with B20, Pueppke said, amounting to roughly 7,500 gallons a month.
East Lansing began using biodiesel in about 35 of its trucks after winning a $24,500 grant last year from Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
Dave Smith, the city's environmental specialist, said the money has been used to install a biodiesel storage tank and supplement the additional cost of the specialty fuel.
Biodiesel usually runs 10 to 15 cents more per gallon than regular diesel, Smith said, but prices have been dropping lately.
East Lansing has already used 33,000 gallons of the alternative fuel, and as a condition of the state grant, agreed to use at least 125,000 gallons over a three-year period.
Singh said he'd like to continue using biodiesel in East Lansing once the three-year agreement is completed, but in cash-strapped communities like East Lansing, officials have to consider the bottom line.
"The amount of gas we go through is significant for the city," Singh said. "Our hope is that as more communities look at biodiesel, the cost of biodiesel will go down."
There are now more than 600 biodiesel pumps nationwide, said Amber Pearson, a spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board.
That doesn't mean finding a place to fill up is convenient.
The majority of biodiesel retailers are concentrated in the Midwest — particularly in states like Indiana, Illinois and Missouri — but there are still only 33 places in Michigan to buy biodiesel at the pump and no more than one in any county.
Local biodiesel fans have to travel more than 20 miles from East Lansing to the one pump in Ingham County.
