SVO

straight vegetable oil. Meaning that your car burns it and it only when in that mode. Nothing other than filtering and warming has been done or added to it. This requires that you modify your vehicle with a second fuel system and a method of heating the oil to bring it from a milk shake constancy to a fluid near that of diesel fuel. This needs to be done so the oil may pass through the fuel injectors and spray in the pattern the engine was designed for. There are kits available to convert your car to use this biofuel. Most take less than a weekend to install and require no special tools.

WVO

waste vegetable oil. Oil that has been cooked in. Usually in a commercial fryer. The stuff that is in the big grease dumpster out behind restaurants. Get to know your local greasy spoon and chances are they will let you pull oil out of their tank. Or better still they will give it to you in the jugs that it comes in.

Biodiesel

diesel fuel made from vegetable oil, waste or new. This biofuel requires no engine modification. Simply dump it into your tank and drive. It is no longer vegetable oil but methyl esters (made with methanol) or ethyl esters (made with ethanol) It is much thiner than the vegetable oil it was made from and looks just the same as petroleum diesel to the engine you put it in. Biodiesel can be used in any unmodified diesel engine and many diesel or fuel oil appliances.

Ethanol

ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, EtOH. Ethanol is made though the fermentation of sugars. These can be from sugar beets, sugar cane and things like corn cellulose that has been processed with acid to turn it into sugars. Also wood and grasses. Ethanol is used today as an oxygenate blended with gasoline. Ethanol can be used in the production of biodiesel. Ethanol is also what makes booze booze.

Methanol

an alcohol fuel. Methanol can be produced from biomass though the largest production today is through the use of natural gas. There are 18 methanol production plants in the United States. Methanol is used in some new design fuel cell vehicles as a primary fuel source. Methanol is used in the production of biodiesel.