Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your cooking area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil business 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 just low-cost but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and cost-effective choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The finest way 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other vehicle. 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 ordinary 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 info on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by lots of long-lasting tests in many nations, including countless miles on the roadway.

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

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

But the large and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply each week or when a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which numerous people with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's cheap or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be eliminated, and it most likely should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.