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 sell you. Your diesel motor will run 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 only low-cost however you'll be recycling a troublesome 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 grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The best way 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 example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. Journey to Forever's Toyota 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 have to begin the engine on normal petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then change 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 details on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

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

Biodiesel is a clean, 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 on 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 weekly or when a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which numerous people with SVO systems utilize since it's inexpensive or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water should be gotten rid of, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may also make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.