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 offer 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 much better for health.

If you make it from used cooking oil it's not just inexpensive but you'll be recycling a troublesome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you require to understand.

Straight veggie oil fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, effective and affordable choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very 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 instance you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up 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 thinner. You have to begin 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 information on straight veggie oil systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works 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 good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by many long-term tests in many nations, consisting of millions of miles on the road.

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

On the other hand, biodiesel can be more pricey, 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 initially.

But the big and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for several years.

Anyway you have to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste vegetable oil, utilized, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems use because it's cheap or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be eliminated, and it most likely must be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel rather." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.