If You Can Bake A Cake, You Can Make Biodiesel
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 07.23.06
We have this wonderful old book, Fortunes in Formulas, that has recipes for making anything in your garage or basement, from insecticides to soaps. It is a North American tradition- the hardy, capable do-it-your-selfer who can make anything and survive anywhere. Biodiesel is attracting a lot of these types- why pay retail for fuel when you can cook it up in your garage? From the CSM:
In his two-car garage, Kevin Newman is pouring used French fry oil from local restaurants into a pair of General Electric household water heaters - his version of the giant petroleum cracking towers found at an oil company refinery. He deftly moves hoses around, scrubs the impurities from the oil, performs chemical tests, and, voilà, a week later, he is filling-up his pickup truck with biodiesel. He figures his home refinery saves him and his business, which has six trucks, about $1.75 a gallon. "If you can bake a cake, you can make biodiesel," says Mr. Newman.
We are not certain about this, but then we cannot bake a cake. Nonetheless we expect a lot of exploding garages and gummed up dead diesels along the side of the road. ::Christian Science Monitor
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My brothers girlfriends dad runs a chemical disposal firm. He went to look at a biodiesel plant that was run by this hippy who smoked while making the stuff.