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 huge oil companies 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 just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The very best method 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 utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other cars and truck. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van utilizes 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 start 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 change back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More info on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

has some clear benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in numerous countries, including countless miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still experimental 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 upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems use since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be removed, and it most likely must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "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 say. To each his own.