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

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just cheap but you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT sensation of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and affordable option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The best way is to fit an expert 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn 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 ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that change 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 site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits 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 also has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-term tests in lots of countries, including millions of miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to state that lots of SVO systems are still experimental and need additional 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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize since it's low-cost or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be gotten rid of, and it probably ought to 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 scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.