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 much better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the environment and much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not only low-cost however you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to know.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The very best method is to fit a professional singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other cars and truck. 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 need to start the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that switch 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 site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (however not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

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

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

But the large and rapidly 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 actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste vegetable oil, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use because it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be removed, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.