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 big 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 used cooking oil it's not just cheap however you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and affordable choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The very best 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 example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just start up and go, stop and change 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 regular petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 info on straight veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications 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 good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still speculative 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 brand-new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.

But the big and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply each week or when a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for several years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste veggie oil, used, prepared), which many 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 need to be removed, and it probably ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.