If a farm operation has tractors, trucks and combines to fuel, perhaps it would be easier and cost effective to esterify the SVO to biodiesel and avoid the costs of modifying the tanks and fuel lines. This seems to be working fine for a family member of mine who is running his work truck on home brew biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

additionl comments from Eric Hamilton

Thanks for listening to this interview.

There are a couple of points I wish to clarify.

Smaller motors work well with SVO as well. The real issue is at what level of work load is the motor operating. If your motor is operating for extended periods of time under load, then SVO will work well. This includes pickups and small tractors. If you have a motor that only runs on idle or just runs once a day for 30 minutes, this motor is not a good choice for conversion to SVO.

Motor Warranties: It is true that domestic motor manufactures do not recognize SVO as fuel. (nor does the Federal Government) This puts the motor manufactures in an impossible position. SVO is not a recognized fuel so they can not even address operating the motor on SVO or any warranty issues. They can only say no: Use SVO at your own risk.

Let me tell you what I saw in Germany: SVO, (canola oil) is widely used as diesel fuel. In the fall of 2006 I was told by Peter Donges, a notable SVO consultant and engineer from Germany that over 20,000 over the road trucks and 7500 farm tractors were operating on canola oil as the primary fuel. In the summer of 2008, when I visited again, I was informed that Fendt was selling a tractor equipped from the factory to run on SVO with warranty. Mercedes and Volvo trucks would warranty motors operating on SVO. After market warranty and motor insurance was also available. There were very strict guidelines for operations as well as a SVO fuel standard. The German equivalent to the ASTM standard is a DIN standard. The DIN standard for SVO is DIN V 516047. Only fuel meeting the DIN standard could be used for a valid warranty.

I visited with a fleet manager with 30 trucks operating on SVO. The fleet had 4 years and over one million gallons of trouble free operations. He said the fleet has had no problems using canola oil as fuel. He also said his drivers prefer SVO over diesel because it has more power.

Equipment and truck dealers install Rapstruck systems on new motors and they use SVO from the very moment they get the equipment in service.

Circle Energy is bringing to North America the equipment and the knowhow to make this work here.

Best wishes

Eric