Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- 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-- 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 bothersome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and cost-effective 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 mix. Just start up 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 have to start the engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 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 also has better cold-weather residential or commercial 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 many countries, consisting of countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that lots of SVO systems are still speculative and need more development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending 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 to be processed first.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which numerous individuals with SVO systems use since it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have 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.