SEATTLE -- For the first time in a very long time, there's a new "filling" station in downtown Seattle. But you can't buy gas there.

Pull in here, and you can fill up with canola oil or recycled cooking oil.

It all goes into biodiesel.

At South Lake Union, Propel biodiesel opens its sixth local station, and the first filling station downtown in - nobody knows how long.

"Consumers have never had a choice," said Founder and CEO Rob Elam. "It's one of the very rare consumer products where you've gone to the store, i.e. the gas station and you have 87 or 91 and that's it so people have not grown up thinking about the fact that they make choices."

If you drive a diesel, you now have a choice. The price isn't any different than traditional diesel, but it's a cleaner fuel.

Gary Flaskerud's GLY Construction Company fills its 5 trucks with biodiesel.


'Why not reduce your carbon footprint," he said. "You know, GLY as a company to date has saved 1,760 pounds of CO2 that would have been released into the atmosphere, so I mean you got to feel good about that."

Gary knows the impact because Propel tracks his carbon dioxide reduction.

Biodiesel fuel is unusual for some people if you're not used to using it, but this station has even more uniqueness about it -- there's no attendant on duty. It's totally self serve and it has some unusual plantings out here -- and there's a reason for all of this.

To show you where biodiesel comes from, they planted canola, camelina, soy and sunflowers and installed a rain collecting roof. The water takes care of the landscaping.

"We hope that this site will open people's eyes to the things that we can do to help our environment," said Ben Pascal with Propel.

It's a choice, and Propel thinks this choice will help our environment.

It offers 5%, 20% and even 99% biodiesel fuel at its filling stations.

Propel is one of a half dozen companies that sell biodiesel in the Puget Sound area.