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 companies offer you. Your diesel motor will run much 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 used cooking oil it’s not just inexpensive but you’ll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Most importantly is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here’s how to do it-- whatever you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The best way is to fit an expert 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 start up and go, stop and turn off, like any other automobile. Journey to Forever’s Toyota TownAce van uses 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 change 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 information on straight grease systems in my blog.

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 also has better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it’s backed by many long-lasting tests in numerous countries, including millions of miles on the road.

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

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 utilized oil (and depending upon 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 every week or as soon as a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO ( oil, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems use due to the fact that it’s inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be gotten rid of, and it most likely must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, “If I’m going to need to do all that I might 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.