Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil business 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 much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not only inexpensive but you'll be recycling a problematic waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The best way is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses 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 ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that switch 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 info on straight grease 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 residential or commercial properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that lots of SVO systems are still speculative and need further development.

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 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 each week or once a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste veggie oil, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be removed, and it probably ought to 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 state. To each his own.