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 sell 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 much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just low-cost however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to know.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The finest 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 example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other car. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van uses an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it thinner. You need to start the engine on regular 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.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather homes than SVO (but not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in lots of nations, including on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that numerous SVO systems are still speculative and require further development.

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

But the big and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply each week or when a month and quickly get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for many years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize because it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it probably should be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may too make biodiesel instead." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.