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1 Make your own Biodiesel Part 2

Anybody can make biodiesel. It's easy, you can make it in your kitchen area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil business 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 used cooking oil it's not just inexpensive however you'll be recycling a frustrating waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, independence and empowerment it will offer you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The best 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 instance you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and switch off, like any other vehicle. 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 begin the engine on ordinary petroleum diesel or biodiesel in one tank and after that switch to SVO in the other tank when the veg-oil is hot enough, and switch 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 benefits over SVO: it operates in any diesel, without any or adjustments to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has much better cold-weather properties than SVO (but not as excellent as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it's backed by lots of long-term tests in many countries, including millions of miles on the roadway.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still experimental and need more 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 utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.

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

Anyway you need to process SVO too, specifically WVO (waste vegetable oil, used, cooked), which numerous individuals with SVO systems use because it's inexpensive or totally free for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water must be removed, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.