Make your own Biodiesel Part 2
Anybody can make biodiesel. It's simple, you can make it in your cooking area-- and it's BETTER than the petro-diesel fuel the big oil companies offer 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 used cooking oil it's not only low-cost however you'll be recycling a bothersome waste item. Best of all is the GREAT feeling of flexibility, self-reliance and empowerment it will give you. Here's how to do it-- whatever you need to know.
Straight grease fuel (SVO) can be a clean, reliable and economical option. Unlike biodiesel, with SVO you need to customize the engine. The very best way is to fit a professional 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 example you can utilize petro-diesel, biodiesel or SVO, in any combination. Just start up and go, stop and change off, like any other car. 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 have 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 change back to petro- or biodiesel before you stop the engine, or you'll coke up the injectors.
More information on straight grease systems in my blog.
3. Biodiesel or SVO?
Biodiesel has some clear benefits over SVO: it works in any diesel, with no conversion or modifications 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 good as petro-diesel-- see Using biodiesel in winter). Unlike SVO,
it's backed by numerous long-lasting tests in lots of countries, consisting of millions of miles on the road.
Biodiesel is a clean, safe, ready-to-use, alternative fuel, whereas it's reasonable to state that many SVO systems are still speculative and require additional 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 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 rapidly growing around the world band of homebrewers don't mind-- they make a supply weekly or as soon as a month and soon get utilized to it. Many have been doing it for years.
Anyway you have to process SVO too, especially WVO (waste grease, utilized, prepared), which many individuals with SVO systems use since it's inexpensive or totally 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 need to do all that I may as well make biodiesel rather." But SVO types belittle that-- it's much less processing than making biodiesel, they say. To each his own.