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 offer you. Your diesel motor will run better and last longer on your home-made fuel, and it’s much cleaner-- better for the environment and better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it’s not just low-cost but you’ll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here’s how to do it-- everything you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and cost-effective choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best way is to fit a professional 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 combination. Just begin up and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. 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 begin the engine on common 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 switch 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 benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it’s backed by many long-lasting 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 state that many SVO systems are still experimental and require further advancement.

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

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize because it’s inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, “If I’m going to need to do all that I may as well make biodiesel rather.” But SVO types scoff at that-- it’s much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.