Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big 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 and much better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not just cheap however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and cost-effective choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and change off, like any other vehicle. 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 normal 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 information on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages 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 properties than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in lots of countries, consisting of countless 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 require more development.

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 brand-new oil or used oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many individuals 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 must be gotten rid of, and it most likely should be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.