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 big oil business sell 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 better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just cheap however you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very 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 example 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 likewise two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You have to begin the engine on regular 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 site.

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-- simply put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that lots of SVO systems are still speculative and require 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 new oil or used oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use because it's cheap or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.