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 sell 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 inexpensive but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, independence 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 affordable choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to modify the engine. The very best method is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, in addition to fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for circumstances you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and turn off, like any other cars and truck. 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 normal 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 veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

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

is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to state that lots of SVO systems are still speculative and need more 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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

But the large and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply every week or once a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be eliminated, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.