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There are so many reasons why you should consider biodiesel as part of your life and every reason why you should consider making an effort to learn how to make homemade biodiesel. Don’t ditch your New Year’s resolution already! We cannot forget how gasoline prices ran up to a terrible spike a year or so ago. Let’s try and control our lives so that we don’t remain slaves to external forces, be they individual organisations, governments or foreign countries.

While everyone else around us may appear to be selfish or consumed by their own issues, even if this is not the case, we should ensure that we individually take action to protect our planet. It’s possible for every one of us to make a difference and as we know that transportation accounts for a large chunk of carbon emissions, consider fuelling your vehicle with biodiesel or a blend of it.

Making biodiesel is a realistic option. You need to learn about transesterification. You need to take vegetable or animal oils and fats, also known as triglycerides and extract the glycerine. By using a catalyst, lye, you would remove fatty acids and be left with biodiesel.

You don’t have to spend a small fortune to set up a system allowing you to make biodiesel. Nor do you have to be a chemist or have the entire volunteer fire department on standby as you experiment! It is advised that you start out in a small way and see how you progress. At the least, you could make biodiesel fuel for the vehicles of your family and help to save money from your monthly budget.

There are certain basic chemicals required when making biodiesel fuel and these include methanol. The methanol needs to be almost pure for it to work. You might think the methanol is linked to global warming and it is in a certain way, but it’s used in very much smaller quantities. Should you rely on petroleum or petro diesel, you will definitely be making a difference in emission terms. Don’t forget to protect the catalyst from the atmosphere as it can absorb moisture quickly. Pick up caustic soda or potassium hydroxide and don’t breathe any fumes or get the mixture on your skin.

Start your initial experiments by using regular, over-the-counter canola oil or sunflower oil. Add to your list a blender, receptacles, an accurate scale, a certain type of container (#2 designation), a couple of funnels, a large bottle to use for settling, a thermometer and a bottle to be used for washing the mixture.

You’re now ready to go, and can start testing and venturing into your new world of propulsion! With so much to gain, not only ecologically, but also financially and politically, what could be the reason - or reasons, why it’s taking such an incredibly long period of time to make this extraordinary change for the better, for all of us, not just now, but for all of the future generations which will follow as well?