Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil business offer you. Your diesel motor will run much 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 cheap but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and cost-effective alternative. 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, in addition to fuel heating.

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

There are likewise two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You need to begin the engine on regular 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 information on straight veggie oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments 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 great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in many countries, consisting of millions of 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 speculative and need further 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 new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems use because it's cheap or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be gotten rid of, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.