Mean Green

When one discusses biofuels, one is usually talking about biodiesel. Biodiesel is an amazing breakthrough in fuel technology that can save a person an amazing amount of money in transportation costs. With the current state of the economy motivating people to reduce costs and with the growing awareness and support of environmental responsibility, many people have turned to biodiesel as a way to not only save money, but to do their part to help the environment as well.

Biodiesel is a hybrid of standard diesel and vegetable oil mixed together at certain proportions that is capable of running a standard diesel engine. The fact that biodiesel is made largely of vegetable oil makes this fuel cost significantly less than regular diesel. Furthermore, many have found that the vegetable oil that they mix with the regular diesel does not have to be fresh oil, but can be used oil that fast food restaurants would otherwise have thrown away. People are usually able to obtain this used oil for free, which makes biodiesel even cheaper.

Once a person has the ingredients, it is possible to mix and refine them into biodiesel with their own homemade refinery. This is not a dangerous proposition, as long as the liquids are well contained, and is fairly easy to accomplish. There are an abundance of resources in print and online that will show one how to build an affordable biodiesel refinery that is safe to have in a garage, shed or on a porch.

In the early stages, critics of biodiesel complained that the chemical makeup of the biofuel was such that it would tend to clog fuel injectors and would cause fuel pumps to burn out. While this may have been the case early on, today’s methods of mixing biodiesel have evolved to avoid these problems and do not pose a threat to ones vehicle. The engine power and torque one can get from biodiesel is almost identical to regular diesel.

The emissions from biodiesel still contain a certain amount of hydro carbons and pollutants, but at levels dramatically lower than regular diesel, since the vegetable oil by products burn so cleanly. By running a vehicle on biodiesel, one can save a dramatic amount of money, many times over half of what they were paying to run the vehicle on standard diesel.