Prince Charles is building the world's first green town.

It takes a lot of guts and a very special type of person to build a town, and say it's going to be the most eco-friendly town in the world. A person like the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles.

A free bicycle with every home and wind-generated electricity - welcome to Prince of Wales' 'eco-town'.

Prince Charles has been granted permission to build Sherford, a brand new town for 12,000 people, in South Devon that is billed as Britain's greenest settlement.

The Prince's advisers have suggested that cars should be banned from some areas and three quarters of buildings fitted with solar power panels.

The ambience of the town will be traditionally English.

Also, there are plans for a cricket pitch and bowling green.

The Prince has said he wants to build places "we all know strike a chord in our, by now, rather bewildered hearts, however 'modern' we are - places that convey an everlasting human story of meaning and belonging".

The project is due to be completed by 2020 on the rolling farmland on the edge of Plymouth and planners intend half of all Sherford's energy to come from renewable sources on site. Wind turbines will loom over the town's 400-acre park.

This is going to be interesting to follow as it's being developed, but unfortunately it sounds like that could take a while. At least they've got the right idea, and now we just wait and see if it works out the way we hope it will.

Biodiesel extends the life of bus engines

A school district in Virginia has decided to switch their fleet of buses to biodiesel.

Two years ago Gloucester Co. decided to test alternative fuels on 20 of its school buses. Now all of its buses are running on biodiesel that’s made right outside Hampton Roads.

Biodiesel is petrodiesel mixed with soybean oil, and Head of Transportation for the Gloucester County School System Roger Kelly says bus drivers using it have noticed the difference.

“Some of our drivers have even commented that they see that the buses run smoother,” he said.

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Bio-diesel acts like a cleaning agent. For school buses, this means the fuel has the ability to clean mineral deposits from the fuel injectors, fuel tanks and fuel lines. In the long run, that means a bus can stay in service a lot longer before needing a new engine.

The good news is that it is cleaner. But like most biofuels, there is a cost to consider, namely what the source of the fuel is. As long as we're not taking crops out of the food chain, biodiesel is a great alternative. But we have to be careful that we're using sources of fuel that won't lead to food shortages sooner rather than later.