Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen 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 used cooking oil it's not only cheap however you'll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and cost-effective option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have to customize the engine. The best way 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just begin up and go, stop and change off, like any other automobile. 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 normal 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 change back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.

More details on straight veggie oil systems in my blog site.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it operates in any diesel, with no conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has much 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 numerous nations, including millions of miles on the roadway.

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

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 has to be processed initially.

But the big and rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply each week or as soon as a month and soon get utilized 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 utilize because it's cheap or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be eliminated, and it most likely ought to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.