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 business sell you. Your diesel motor will run much better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only inexpensive but you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and affordable option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The very best method is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, along with fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and change off, like any other automobile. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses 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 start the engine on common petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then change to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and change back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More details on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and require further advancement.

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

But the big and quickly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply weekly or when a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize since it's low-cost or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be gotten rid of, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.