Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil business offer 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 much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just inexpensive but you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.

fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and cost-effective alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The best method is to fit a professional singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, as well as fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and switch 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 have to start the engine on regular 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 info on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

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

it's backed by numerous long-term tests in lots of nations, consisting of millions of 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 need more development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending just how much you make, what you make it from and whether you're comparing it with brand-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 worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply each week or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for several years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, utilized, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.