Make your own Biodiesel Part 2
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 sell 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 cheap but you’ll be recycling a troublesome waste product. Most importantly is the GREAT feeling of freedom, independence and empowerment it will provide you. Here’s how to do it– everything you require to know.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) systems can be a clean, efficient and affordable option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best way 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 example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just launch and go, stop and change off, like any other car. Journey to Forever’s Toyota 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 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 info on straight vegetable oil systems in my blog.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear advantages 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 properties than SVO (but not as great as petro-diesel– see Using biodiesel in winter season). Unlike SVO,
it’s backed by numerous long-term tests in numerous countries, including millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a tidy, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it’s reasonable to say that many SVO systems are still speculative and require more 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 utilized oil (and depending on where you live). And unlike SVO, it has 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 been doing it for several years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, particularly WVO (waste grease, used, cooked), which lots of individuals with SVO systems use due to the fact that it’s cheap or free for the taking. With WVO food particles and pollutants and water must be gotten rid of, and it probably needs to be deacidified too. Biodieselers say, “If I’m going to need to do all that I might too make biodiesel instead.” But SVO types scoff at that– it’s much less processing than making biodiesel, they state. To each his own.
