Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not only cheap however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and affordable option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very best way is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, in addition to fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just begin up and go, stop and turn off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van utilizes an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to begin the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then switch to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More info on straight veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-term tests in many countries, consisting of countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that lots of SVO systems are still experimental and need additional development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending just how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

But the large and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or as soon as a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use because it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be removed, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.