Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the huge oil companies offer 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 used cooking oil it's not just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a problematic 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-- whatever you need to know.

Straight vegetable oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and affordable choice. 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 circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just start up and go, stop and change off, like any other cars and truck. 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 have to start the engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and then 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 vegetable oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits 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 also has better cold-weather residential or commercial properties than SVO (however not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-term tests in many countries, consisting of millions of miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still experimental and need more advancement.

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

But the big and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or when a month and soon get used to it. Many have been doing it for years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize since it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be removed, and it most likely 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.