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 huge oil companies sell you. Your diesel motor will run much 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 utilized cooking oil it’s not just cheap but you’ll be recycling a problematic waste item. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, independence and empowerment it will give you. Here’s how to do it-- whatever you need to know.

Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, efficient and affordable alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The finest way is to fit an expert 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 example you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and turn off, like any other automobile. 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 need to start 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 switch back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you’ll coke up the injectors.

More details on straight grease systems in my blog.

3. Biodiesel or SVO?

Biodiesel has some clear advantages over SVO: it works in any diesel, without any conversion or modifications to the engine or the fuel system-- simply put it in and go. It likewise has better cold-weather homes than SVO (however not as great as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,

it’s backed by lots of long-term tests in many countries, including countless miles on the road.

Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it’s reasonable to state that numerous SVO systems are still speculative and require more advancement.

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 or used oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed first.

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

Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems use since it’s low-cost or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be removed, 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 instead.” But SVO types belittle that-- it’s much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.