Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- 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-- much better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to know.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best method 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 utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other automobile. Journey to Forever's Toyota 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 have to start the engine on ordinary 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 details on straight grease systems in my blog site.

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 likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (however not as excellent 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 roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that numerous SVO systems are still speculative and require more advancement.

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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

But the big and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or when a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for many years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be removed, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.