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 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 just cheap but you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best method is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just start up 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 start the engine on common 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 information on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-term tests in numerous nations, consisting of countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and require additional .

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 utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

But the big and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply every week or when a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste vegetable oil, utilized, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize because it's inexpensive or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.