Biodiesel is a big deal in our household. Carol bought her used VW Beetle because it has one of Volkwagen’s excellent little TDI diesel engine powering it. When she first got the car four years ago, she had to drive to southern Maine or to Chelsea, Mass., to find biodiesel. Slowly, it has become more readily available, and now she can get it at Bursaw’s in Acton, Mass., not far from her co-author’s office.

But now biodiesel has really hit it big. Today’s New York Times reports that long-haul truckers are starting to buy biodiesel because of one very influential man.

[Mike Frybarger] filled up his truck’s 300-gallon tank at Carl’s Corner, a Texas truck stop that is the center of the nation’s growing biodiesel industry.

“I heard about biodiesel on XM Radio,” Mr. Frybarger said. “Bill Mack has Willie come on his show and actually talk to truckers. Before Willie got involved, biodiesel wasn’t well known. But once Willie got behind it, he brought biodiesel to the forefront.”

“Willie,” of course, is Willie Nelson. Seems that Willi’es wife, Annie, bought a VW Jetta with a TDI diesel engine for the same reason Carol bought her Beetle: so she could use biodiesel. The Nelsons live on Maui, where biodiesel has been more readily available than on the mainland, thanks to the efforts of Pacific Biodiesel, one of the earliest successful marketers of the fuel.

Biodiesel pollutes less than petrochemical-based fuels, it does not release carbon that’s been stored for eons, it supports agriculture, and best of all it now has the .