Voting With Their Wallets

Washington, D.C. -So far in the 2008 election cycle, Barack Obama has pulled in the most dollars from folks working for the 118 companies that make up the Forbes Beltway Index.

Using data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C., we tallied individual contributions made this year and last, through March 3, for Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Obama.

The Center for Responsive Politics' database, searchable here, tracks individual contributions of $200 or greater, as smaller contributions are not part of the public record. Note also that we did not survey contributions made to political action committees.

By the individual contributions measure, Obama's take adds up to $962,000 from people working at Forbes Beltway Index companies. Clinton and McCain, respectively, show contributions of $771,000 and $525,000.

Full story at Forbes.com

Biodiesel In The Beltway

Washington, D.C. - In its mission statement, the National Biodiesel Board has a simple goal. By 2015, the Jefferson City, Mo.-based trade group would like to see 5% of the U.S.' diesel needs met by biodiesel, a fuel made for diesel engines from feedstocks such as animal fats, greases and vegetable oils.

The U.S. goes through 60 billion gallons of diesel annually. In 2007, 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced. So for the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) to complete its 2015 mission, biodiesel production will have to increase at a 29% annualized clip over the next seven years.

Six years ago, biodiesel production stood at just 15 million gallons, implying a headturning 111% yearly growth rate since. But maintaining the momentum will be tough. The industry faces loud skepticism from environmentalists, who fret about biodiesel and byproducts getting dumped into streams, and economists who question whether biofuels can ever be viable without heavy government support.

So a favorable terrain in Washington will be key, as the biodiesel industry's biggest players make clear. In its annual report, for example, biodiesel refiner Nova Biosource Fuels warns investors that the "U.S. biodiesel industry is highly dependent on a myriad of federal and state legislation and regulation."

Full story at Forbes.com

Taking On Congress' Favorite Biofuel

For a young company, Virent Energy Systems seems to lead a charmed life. The Madison, Wis., biofuels outfit has pulled in more than $30 million from venture capitalists while striking strategic relationships with the likes of Cargill, Honda Motor and Royal Dutch Shell.

Watch Virent Chief Executive Eric Apfelbach's crisp PowerPoint presentation on the company's business, and you'd probably want to get a piece of this action too. Virent has a low-temperature, low-pressure, catalytic process for turning carbohydrates (sugars) into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. Its 70 employees now make a gallon or so daily. Targeting gasoline as its first fuel, Virent hopes within five years to raise that production to 10 million to 15 million gallons annually.

The jump from several hundred gallons to 15 million will require extraordinary chemical engineering, a feat Apfelbach sounds confident his company can pull off. Engineering a hospitable climate in Washington, D.C., however, could be trickier.

"We have to make sure that we don't get locked out," worries Apfelbach, 47. "We just don't want to get killed by policy.

Full story at Forbes.com

The Pressure Is On For Ceramics

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In the early 1980s, buzz grew loud around the use of ceramics in motor vehicles. Given advances in the technology, certain experts argued, it would not be too long before entire engines could be mass-produced from the hard, heat-resistant material.

Those experts were wrong. "The performance characteristics of an 'all-ceramic' engine are not that attractive, really," says John Heywood, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Still, as automakers struggle to go easier on the environment, more ceramics will end up in cars, particularly for emissions control and cutting the weight of components. Publicly traded participants in the ceramics business, notably Ceradyne (nasdaq: CRDN) and Japan's Kyocera, stand to benefit.

Full story at Forbes.com

Zero To $2.5 billion In 18 Years

Washington, D.C. - World Wide Technology, a technology distributor ranked 199 on our most recent list of America's largest privately held companies, has chalked up some impressive recent sales stats.

Over the past three years, the St. Louis company has averaged annual revenue growth of 25%, thanks to business from blue-chip tech customers such as Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) and Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ). WWT has worked for the latter company since 2003 and now has 100 folks on the account. Those employees forecast and monitor demand for computer components at Dell factories. A network of WWT warehouses replenishes those factories with trucks, loaded up with gear from dozens of suppliers, that arrive every 45 minutes.

Contrast WWT's sales growth with its publicly traded competition in the table below--the average three-year revenue growth number is 10%. Only two companies, Brightpoint (nasdaq: CELL) and Nu Horizons Electronics (nasdaq: NUHC), beat World Wide Technology on this metric.

And WWT tells us that it doesn't owe its top-line growth to mergers and acquisitions. "It's been organic," says Joseph Koenig, 43, WWT's President. "Five years ago, we put together a plan of where we wanted to be, and it's really execution of that plan."

Full story at Forbes.com