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 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 used cooking oil it's not only cheap however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The finest 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any . Just launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other automobile. 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 have to start the engine on regular 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 change back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More information 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 adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more costly, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with new oil or used oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed first.

But the big and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply each week or as soon as a month and soon 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 because it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be eliminated, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, “If I'm going to have 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.