Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it's much cleaner-- much better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only inexpensive but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and change off, like any other automobile. 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 start the engine on regular petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 information on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-lasting tests in numerous countries, consisting of millions of miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and require further 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 upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.

But the big and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply weekly or when a month and quickly get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste veggie oil, utilized, cooked), which numerous individuals with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be eliminated, and it probably ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.