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 companies 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 inexpensive however you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and economical alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The best method is to fit a professional 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and change off, like any other car. 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 need to begin the engine on regular petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that switch 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 vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works 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 homes than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in numerous nations, including millions of miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to state that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and need additional advancement.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with 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 each week or once a month and quickly get used to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize since it's low-cost or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be removed, and it probably ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.