Is anyone here making biodiesel? I was looking at getting into it if I can find the space for it in the garage. The only issue is it seems the price of the equipment for making large batches is pretty high.

I looked into it a few years ago when I got a diesel as my "survival vehicle". It really is just a niche market sort of thing, not a sustainable for-the-masses option, and the idea of SHTF food crops being diverted to make fuel for just tooling around like everything is cool is a no-go. Not quite in the same league as using $25 per gallon moonshine to run your motorcycle at a fraction of the efficiency of gasoline, but you get the picture.

It kind of works if you are in a country area on the edge of a major city where other people don't have the whole waste grease market all hogged up, then you sort of get your fuel for "free", kind of, except that you are running around a day or two a few time a month picking up jugs of the fry grease and then spending another day running it through the home refiner.

My conclusion at the time was I was better off just getting a couple 55 gallon drums of farm diesel, calling it my SHTF stash, and calling it a prepared plan.

One concept in favor of the Diesel is that if SHTF, the "powers that be" will most likely see Diesel as being of strategic importance and keep supplies flowing in some form, while supplies of high octane gasoline might not be around at all.

What I found out (the hard way) is that a lot of insular communities don't even want Diesel sold at their gas stations because they don't want truck traffic after hours, There are huge stretches of highway 101 (the main north/south coastal highway in the Western states) where you can't buy diesel at night at any price, and some of the little towns along the Oregon coast have arranged not to sell it. Had some smug fuckers explain that to me when I ran out of fuel, and was going town to town on my reserve trying to find a place to that sold it one night heading home after a gun show. The real thing to worry about along that stretch is people knowing you are loaded with guns and gear after a gun show and just following waiting for you to run out of fuel, and even if you have AAA, take bets on how much of that cool gear will still be in your truck by the next morning.

Now for keeping a farm or industrial site going, maybe it would be smart, but then so is just getting some big fuel tanks and filling up with farm diesel.

Theoretically they can fine you pretty heavily if they find the red diesel in your regular truck fuel tank but if WROL, that don't matter much. If you know how to remove/disguise the dye, then they will never figure it out anyway.

My next door neighbor made it for several years after he found a clean used older model Mercedes for $1500.

He's a scrapper...

Picked up a used 250 gallon heating oil tank for free to store his fuel.

Went to the local transmission shop and picked up several clean 55 gallon barrels and then went to all the local fast food places and offered to remove their old cooking oil for free. Every time the barrels were full they would call him and he would pick it up and drop off another one for them to fill.

His equipment to make the fuel was simple...

He built a strainer out of screen wire and cheese cloth to remove the heavy crud from the "fuel" then pumped it through several large diesal fuel filters and a water trap. The finished product was cut with a little alcohol and fuel conditioner.

The car ran perfectly, no problems starting...fuel mileage was good.

I hated that Mercedes...made me hungry every time it was running. Smelled like a french fry factory.

Well I wasn't exactly looking at it entirely for SHTF. It would be nice to have it for daily driving, instead of paying the $4/gal they have right now. $.080/gal fuel is tempting.

I'm still glad I have a diesel now, for SHTF purposes and just for the cool factor. The price sucks to fill up though.

I keep a filled 5gal jerry can in the trunk for emergencies. I couldn't do that with gasoline, as the vapors always find a way out.

Back on topic, the proper way of making biodiesel with filtering, heating, ph testing, lye&methanol, draining off the glycerin, and water washing/drying, seems very simple...when you're doing it as an expirement in a gallon jug. However, in large quantities it seems you need to either build your own processor out of a hot water heater or buy an expensive one. I'm not sure exactly how to build one yet.

You can power a diesel on used motor oil and transmission fluid. It's dirty...but it works. You would need to double-filter your fuel system (changing them often), and probably de-tune the timing.

One of the Doomsday prepper episodes on NatGeo had one couple pull this off using a gulf war surplus duece and a half truck with a multi-fuel diesel engine. They went to local repair shops and pumped used motor oil into storage tanks to use with the truck.

Cool! The use of used oil/transmission fluid isn't limited exclusively to "multi-fuel" engines. It can be done with daily drivers.