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 huge oil companies 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 bothersome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here’s how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and affordable alternative. 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, 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 combination. Just launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other cars and truck. 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 have to begin the engine on regular petroleum diesel or 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 details on straight grease 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 adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just 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-lasting tests in many nations, consisting of millions of miles on the roadway.

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, depending just how much you make, what you make it from and whether you’re comparing it with brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.

But the big and quickly growing around the world band of homebrewers don’t mind-- they make a supply each week or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use due to the fact that it’s cheap or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be eliminated, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, “If I’m going to need to do all that I might as well make biodiesel instead.” But SVO types belittle that-- it’s much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.