The classic image of a paperboy pedaling down the street as he tosses newspapers onto front lawns may feel like 1950s television. Well, people of the 21st century, get ready for a dose of nostalgia.

The U.S. Postal Service is going green in a big way, reported National Public Radio this week. And that means you can expect to see more mail carriers walking and biking along their daily routes.

With a budget funded solely by postage stamps, getting smarter about energy is a necessity for the independent federal agency, especially as gasoline prices soar over $4 a gallon. (For every one penny that gas prices rise, the agency figures to add approximately $8 million to its annual expenses.)

That's why the Postal Service is participating in "Project Driveway," an initiative to help discover new green technologies to fuel its vehicles. The Postal Service hopes to replace approximately 90 percent of its nearly 200,000 delivery vehicles with ones fueled by hydrogen fuel cells, compressed natural gas, ethanol, and hybrid-electric power, just to name a few.

"We're exploring all the alternatives in the marketplace for us, just to get out of gas consumption," U.S.P.S. Vice President Walt O'Tormey told NPR. "And we know we owe the environment ... to come up with a technology that does not impact the environment."

Currently the Postal Service has about 43,000 alternative fuel vehicles in operation, the largest fleet in the nation. And O'Tormey says that the agency will "test anything" to look for new innovative ways to be efficient and save energy.

With General Motors, the U.S.P.S. is currently testing the newest hydrogen fuel cell models. It is also powering buildings with solar panels and using eco-friendly packaging. An effort to eliminate U-turns and left turns from postal routes appears to be helping with fuel efficiency too - an example of low-tech ingenuity that OhMyGov! applauds. That effort has netted a 5 to 12 percent improvement in fuel efficiency.

Avoiding U-turns to save fuel