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-- much 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 frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of flexibility, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, reliable and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify 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 utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and switch 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 diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that switch 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 advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- just 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 lots of countries, consisting of countless miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that lots of SVO systems are still experimental and require further development.

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 new oil or used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed first.

But the large and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers do not mind-- they make a supply weekly or when a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for several years.

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), 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 need to be removed, and it probably must be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have 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.