SVO
Straight Vegetable Oil
Veg Oil Motoring’s guide torunning diesel vehicleson straight vegetable oil
- the carbon neutral fuel
Introduction & backgroundBackground
The idea of using vegetable oil as a dieselengine fuel has been around for a long timeand dates back to the beginning of lastcentury when the diesel engine was invented.Only four years after
Dr Rudolf Diesel
produced his first functional prototype, dieselengines were being successfully run onstraight vegetable oil (
SVO
). Dr Rudolf Diesel was a considerable advocate of using SVO inhis engines, but his aspirations were largelyforgotten until the rocketing fuel prices of the1970s and the early 80s, when a Germancompany started testing SVO in itsrevolutionary new diesel engine. Now, over 25years later, the same company, ElsbettGmbH, is producing reliable conversion kits which allow a huge range of diesel vehicles torun on SVO.
Why vegetable oil?
Reason 1:
SVO is the only readily available fuel forcommon vehicles with virtually zero net CO
2
emissions. Like fossil fuels, SVO still gives outCO
2
emissions when burnt in an engine.However unlike fossil fuels these emissionsessentially replace the CO
2
taken out of theatmosphere by the plants that initially formedthe oil, with the help of sunlight. Because of this SVO is referred to as a carbon neutral fuel.For someone regularly using a diesel vehicle,switching to SVO is probably the largest singlestep they could make in reducing theircontribution to global warming.
Reason 2:
As SVO is essentially captured sunlight energyit is a
renewable fuel
which is not going to runout while the sun still shines. Fossil fuelsalternatively cannot be regenerated (unlessprovided with time frames of many millions of years) and are thus in a state of lesseningsupply. Limited supplies means that the priceof fossil fuels could soon rise to levels whichare truly crippling to motorists.
This leaflet is an introduction to running diesel vehicles on straight vegetable oil(SVO) and aims to answer the main questions of those considering having theirvehicles converted to run on this fuel.
Why vegetable oil?
Reason 3:
SVO comes from domestic crops, reducing theneed for foreign oil while boosting the
localeconomy
and supporting the
agriculturalcommunity
. SVO unlike Middle Eastern oil isnot a source of global tension and conflict andso it is a fuel where a war is not required toensure supply.
How to switch to SVO
To make a diesel vehicle run reliably on SVO it isnecessary to fit a conversion kit to the vehicle. The kit in simple terms heats the SVO and thinsit down to the same thickness/viscosity asdiesel. This allows it to pass through the fueldelivery system in the same way as diesel andburn cleanly in the engine. Conversion kits which enable vehicles to run solely on SVO,known as '
one tank
' kits, have been developedover the last 25 years by the German company
Elsbett
. Driving vehicles fitted with these kits isessentially no different compared to regular, dayto day driving on diesel, with the exception of what you put in the fuel tank.
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