Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your kitchen-- 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 only low-cost however you'll be recycling a problematic waste product. Best of all is the GREAT sensation of liberty, self-reliance and empowerment it will provide you. Here's how to do it-- everything you need to know.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a tidy, effective and affordable choice. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to modify the engine. The very best way is to fit an expert 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 circumstances you can use petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any mix. Just begin up and go, stop and switch off, like any other car. 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 start 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 information on straight vegetable oil 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 likewise has much better cold-weather homes 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 lots of countries, consisting of 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 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 on where you live). And unlike SVO, it needs to be processed initially.
But the large and rapidly growing worldwide band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or as soon as a month and soon get used to it. Many have actually been doing it for several years.
Anyway you need to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste veggie oil, used, cooked), which lots of people with SVO systems utilize because it's inexpensive or complimentary for the taking. With WVO food particles and impurities and water should be gotten rid of, and it most likely needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, "If I'm going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead." But discount 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
Bernd Marlay edited this page 3 months ago