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 business sell 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 better for health.
If you make it from used cooking oil it's not only low-cost but you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to understand.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, reliable and economical alternative. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The finest method 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 switch off, like any other automobile. 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 need to start the engine on 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 info on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog site.
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 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 many long-lasting tests in lots of countries, including millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's fair to state that lots of 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 used oil (and depending upon where you live). And unlike SVO, it has to be processed initially.
But the large and quickly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply every week or once a month and soon get used to it. Many have been doing it for many years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize due to the fact that it's inexpensive or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water need to be eliminated, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers state, "If I'm going to have to do all that I may as well make biodiesel instead." But SVO types scoff at that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.
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Make your own Biodiesel Part 2
Roberta Wolken edited this page 2025-01-16 22:12:20 +01:00