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 big oil business sell you. Your diesel motor will run 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 used cooking oil it's not only low-cost however you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT sensation of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and affordable alternative. 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, along with fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for instance you can utilize 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 utilizes an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You need to begin the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that 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 vegetable oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by numerous long-term tests in numerous nations, including millions of miles on the roadway.

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with new oil or used oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be removed, and it most likely must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.