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 big 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 better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not only cheap however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The finest method is to fit a professional 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 circumstances you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other automobile. 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 start the engine on regular petroleum diesel or 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 details on straight veggie oil 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 much better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that many SVO systems are still speculative and need further advancement.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that 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 should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.