Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil companies sell 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 utilized cooking oil it's not only inexpensive however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and cost-effective choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The finest method is to fit a professional singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, in addition to fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. Journey to Forever's Toyota van utilizes 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 biodiesel in one tank and then change 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 benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, 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 on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it most likely must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.