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 companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run 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 low-cost however you'll be recycling a bothersome waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and . Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The finest method is to fit an expert singletank SVO system with replacement injectors and glowplugs optimised for veg-oil, in addition to fuel heating.

With the German Elsbett single-tank SVO system for circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up 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 have to start the engine on common 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 veggie 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-- simply put it in and go. It also has better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). 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 fair to state that numerous SVO systems are still speculative and require additional development.

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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems use due to the fact that it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be eliminated, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.