I Burn Corn
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11. 7.05
There's an entire web site devoted to burning corn, appropriated called "I Burn Corn". Here you can learn about the author John Abbott's first-hand experiences with heating his home with corn. He also provides a detailed article on how to store corn. Other information the site includes: a discussion of the costs involved over the years, a set of corn burning links, and a small discussion forum. The information is kept general enough to cover corn burning stoves, and furnaces as well. :: I Burn Corn
I find the idea of burning food while so many others starve to be, at the least, disgusting, and at the most homicidal.
Furthermore, corn is one of the most heavily subsidized and oil-intensive crops in North America, so burning it is definitely NOT TreeHugger. As a side note, cheap corn, and therefore cheap corn sugar, is one of the main reasons why so many Americans are obese.
U.S. corn is so heavily subsidized that it can undercut Mexican-grown corn, if you can believe that, and is wreaking havoc with Mexico's farmers.
I strongly urge everyone to read Michael Pollan's "When a Crop Becomes King" (http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0719-01.htm). After that, read everything else he has written, starting with "Power Steer". What you eat is one of the most important choices you can make each day, and if you don't believe me, ask the Union of Concerned Scientists.
From the "I Burn Corn" FAQ:
I did a cursory search to look for how many BTUs of diesel fuel are burned to produce a bushel of corn, but didn't see it. If we knew that, we could judge whether burning corn is more or less green than using diesel (or the similarly refined heating oil) directly.
The issue of whether we should be burning food as fuel is definitely something to consider. My car runs on biodiesel made from soybeans. It is a lot more carbon-neutral than burning petrodiesel, but by increasing the demand for soybeans I am also helping to drive up the cost of this food source and may be contributing to the conversion of rainforest to agriculture.
We need greater use of solar, wind, and other "pure" renewables. For example, much of our home heating can be done with solar hot water. Click here, and scroll down to the magazine article titled "100% Solar Heating". It's about a house in Vermont heated with solar hot water. If that can be made to work in Vermont, it can certainly be made to work over most of the USA. I'm currently looking into this as a replacement for propane heat on my home in Texas.
Just some thoughts on this post's points:
Isn't subsidization used to support the price of a commodity that is usually produced in excess (ie. corn, soybeans, dairy products)? If a viable market for the excess production of, say corn, could be found, would not, or could not subsidization be reduced or eliminated? Seems to me that would free up tax dollars, at least.
Are not many varieties of corn meant for commercial uses and not direct human consumption?
If, as it seems, corn is such an evil plant/commodity, then why is it so versatile? Why does it have to be so "oil-intensive"? Seems the Hopi raised it for quite a few centuries without a John Deere!
But....
Is it really necessary to use as much petroleum based fertilizers? Many sources already say no.
If we can, and do produce useable biodiesel from soy beans and other oil producing plants, can't that be used for crop production? Does that not reduce the petroleum energy input in corn? It very well could!
By using these resources, corn and soy beans, are you driving up the cost of food? Not likely. More than likely you will be giving price support to the worlds farmers and reducing subsidies that all governments dabble in, and all their competitors want eliminated anyway!
Will you be promoting thinning of the rain forest? There is more to that issue than just growing soy beans.
Considering what corn can already do (food, fuel, synthetics, alcohol), it is still, probably, under-utilized in roles eclipsed by oil. Only further research can tell.
After living in Iowa for 15 years, seeing literally tons of shelled corn left outside to rot due to overproduction/low demand, I embraced the concept of using this rather benign abundant source to replace petroleum heat.
It is correct thinking that consumption of corn for burning is not the most environmentally friendly, however it is far ahead of anything else but solar for practical use right here, right now.
This year, thousands of US consumers will turn down or (off) their gas, oil, or coal furnaces and switch to corn giving them energy independence, a low cost, low emmission, safe and abundant source of heat.
Sadly even here in Iowa where "corn is king" children go to bed hungry at night.
This is a social/political problem and has nothing to do with corn as a heating fuel.
In the big picture, solar collection is absolutely the best source for ALL of our energy needs but be aware that Shell, BP and other petroleum producers are quickly entering the solar panel market.
What does that really mean? Even the least cynical among us feel that this will hurt the end users by increasing prices and controlling the availability.
My strong desire to be totally off the grid is not enough to afford solar panels, a large windgen, batteries and associated electronics.
Today, we conserve electricity and heat our home with corn.
In the near future there will be reliable products that will burn a variety of biomass fuels in addition to corn.
For now, it is a huge step in the process of bringing easily renewable, non-petroleum fuel awareness to people who would never consider "going solar."
Which way does a corn auger turn clockwise or counter clockwise. how do you get it to go counter clockwise.
Do you think oil magically springs forth from the ground and then somehow ends up in your gas tank? There are huge energy costs to produce gasoline, fuel oil and diesel.