Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil business 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 used cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The 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 use 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 utilizes an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are likewise two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to start the engine on common petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 info on straight grease systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). 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 tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and require 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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.

But the big and quickly band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply every week or when a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be removed, and it probably 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 discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.