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 offer 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 better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just cheap however you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to know.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize 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 combination. Just start up and go, stop and change off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce 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 need to begin the engine on regular petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 information on straight veggie oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by many long-term tests in many nations, including countless miles on the roadway.

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

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

But the big and quickly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply each week or when a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many people with SVO systems use since it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.