Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your cooking area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil you. Your diesel motor will run much 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 cheap however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The finest way is to fit an expert 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 instance you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other cars and truck. 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 have to begin the engine on ordinary 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 details on straight vegetable oil 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 likewise has much better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in many countries, consisting of countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that many SVO systems are still speculative and require additional advancement.

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 used 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 don't mind-- they make a supply each week or when a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which numerous individuals with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's cheap or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be gotten rid of, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.