Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge 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 better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just low-cost but you'll be recycling a problematic 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-- whatever you require to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and economical alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The very best way is to fit an expert 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 utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. 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 have to start the engine on common 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 information on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in lots of nations, including countless miles on the roadway.

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

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use because it's inexpensive or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be gotten rid of, and it probably should be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, “If I'm going to have to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead.” But SVO types that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.