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 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 much better for health.

If you make it from utilized cooking oil it's not just low-cost but you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, self-reliance 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 tidy, reliable and economical choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you have 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 use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other vehicle. Journey to Forever's Toyota TownAce van utilizes an Elsbett single-tank system. More

There are also two-tank SVO systems which pre-heat the oil to make it . 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 information on straight grease 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-- just put it in and go. It also has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (however not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-lasting tests in many countries, including countless miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to say that many SVO systems are still experimental and need 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 brand-new oil or utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it has actually to be processed first.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's low-cost or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be eliminated, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might also make biodiesel instead." But SVO types discount that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.