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 companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run much 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 utilized cooking oil it's not just low-cost but you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The best way 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 circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other automobile. 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 ordinary petroleum diesel or in one tank and after that 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.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and need more development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, 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 rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's low-cost or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be gotten rid of, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need 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.