Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, 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 much better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the environment and much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not only inexpensive however you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify 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 circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and switch 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 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 vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just 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 numerous long-term tests in numerous nations, including countless miles on the roadway.

is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that many SVO systems are still experimental and need further 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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed first.

But the large and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply every week or once a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for many years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be gotten rid of, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.