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 business 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 utilized cooking oil it's not only cheap but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and economical choice. 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, along with fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other vehicle. 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 have to start the engine on normal 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 grease systems in my blog.

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 much better cold-weather residential or commercial properties 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 lots of countries, consisting of millions of miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that many SVO systems are still experimental and require additional development.

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 new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked), which numerous individuals with SVO systems use since it's cheap or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be removed, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.