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 huge 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 just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and economical alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need 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 example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. 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 have to begin the engine on normal 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 vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by lots of long-term tests in lots of countries, 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 speculative and require more advancement.

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 actually to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste veggie oil, utilized, prepared), which numerous people with SVO systems use because it's low-cost or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be removed, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.