Biodiesel is good for your diesel car

It is surprising how few people are aware that biodiesel is better for your car than the mineral diesel that you purchase on garage forecourts.

In fact, the diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. If you think about it, this is not surprising. When Rudolf Diesel invented the diesel engine at the beginning of the 20th century, there were no diesel fuel pumps at garages so he had to have a readily-available fuel that people could use.

Vegetable oil fits the bill very nicely – it is incredibly easy to make using vegetable products that are readily-available in developed as well as developing countries. When Rudolf Diesel first demonstrated his diesel engine, he ran it on peanut oil.

With the rapid increase in the price of oil and the knowledge that oil supplies will run out probably within our lifetimes, there has been a big resurgence in people using vegetable oil to power their diesel cars.

Whilst it is possible to use vegetable oil straight off the supermarket shelf, it only takes a small amount of effort to convert pure vegetable oil into high quality biodiesel. Making biodiesel at home is now a regular activity by a large number of DIY enthusiasts.

And you do not need to buy new vegetable (cooking) oil from supermarkets. Waste cooking oil is available from most restaurants and fast-food establishments free-of-charge. They need to dispose of it in an environmentally-friendly way and are more than happy to have it collected on a regular basis.

There are guides that show you how easy it is to make your own biodiesel. Not only can you save a large amount of money by making your own biodiesel, but – by using waste vegetable oil – you are effectively recycling a waste product that would normally end up dumped on a landfill site. So making biopdiesel at home is good for the environment.