Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies 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 much better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only inexpensive but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and affordable alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very best way 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it . You need to begin the engine on regular 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 info on straight grease systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

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

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 brand-new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste veggie oil, used, prepared), which numerous individuals with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be removed, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.