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

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only inexpensive but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best 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 utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch 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 also 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 info on straight veggie oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by numerous long-term tests in lots of nations, consisting of millions of miles on the roadway.

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

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

But the big and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or when 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 grease, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.