Anybody can make biodiesel. It’s simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- and it’s BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil business 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 cheap but you’ll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here’s how to do it-- whatever you require to understand.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best method 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 instance you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just launch and go, stop and turn 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 the oil to make it thinner. You have to begin the engine on ordinary 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 change 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 advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- just put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (however not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it’s backed by lots of long-lasting tests in many nations, including countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it’s fair to say that numerous SVO systems are still experimental and need more development.

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more expensive, depending how much you make, what you make it from and whether you’re comparing it with brand-new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use since it’s inexpensive 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 have to do all that I may too make biodiesel rather.” But SVO types discount that-- it’s much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.