Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil companies sell 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 used cooking oil it's not only low-cost however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and cost-effective choice. 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, as well as fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and change off, like any other cars and truck. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses 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 start the engine on common 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 switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More details on straight veggie oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits 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 much better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (however not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to say that many SVO systems are still experimental and need additional development.

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 new oil or utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

But the big and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or as soon as a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

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