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-- much better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not just low-cost however you'll be recycling a product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of liberty, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and cost-effective 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 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 likewise 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 details on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits 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 also has better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and require further advancement.

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

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

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