Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, 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 much 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 utilized cooking oil it's not just cheap however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and affordable choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The finest way is to fit an expert 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 launch and go, stop and switch off, like any other vehicle. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van utilizes 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 ordinary 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 veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in numerous countries, including countless miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that many SVO systems are still speculative and require additional advancement.

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 utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste veggie oil, utilized, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be eliminated, and it probably should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.