Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your cooking area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big 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 just inexpensive but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and affordable alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The best way 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 begin up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are likewise two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to begin the engine on common 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 details on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog.

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-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather properties than SVO (however not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-lasting tests in lots of countries, consisting of countless miles on the roadway.

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending 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 actually to be processed initially.

But the large and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a or once a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use because it's cheap or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be eliminated, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.