Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil business offer 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 only inexpensive however you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and economical 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and turn 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 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 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?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-lasting tests in lots of countries, including countless 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 require more advancement.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, 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 upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

But the large and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply weekly or as soon as a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have actually been doing it for several years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize because it's low-cost or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be eliminated, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.