Corn Furnaces make national news

Joseph Gwinn wrote in news:JoeGwinn- snipped-for-privacy@comcast.dca.giganews.com:

Is corn still cheap once you remove all of the Federal subsidies? And how much fossil fuel and fossil fertilizer goes into corn versus other enery- producing crops, e.g. rapeseed or hemp? I don't know, just asking.

I've read that the energy outputs for growing corn for BTUs give you a

I think there are less tangible costs in intensive monoculture (soil depletion, erosion, maybe others) and IMO growing corn for heat doens't sound like a good idea. It certainly makes sense to use the waste where you find it, but don't grow it.

In the name of domestic energy freedom the Taxpayers pay companies like ADM[1] to grow corn for ethanol. This is a scam. Ethanol production has a byproduct, lysine, which is worth more than the ethanol and ADM has paid what was at the time the largest antitrust fine ever becuase it cornered the lysine market bases on taxpaer corn subsidies.

From [1] ...According to the Cato Institute, "ADM has cost the American economy billions of dollars since 1980 and has indirectly cost Americans tens of billions of dollars in higher prices and higher taxes over that same period. At least 43 percent of ADM's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. Moreover, every $1 of profits earned by ADM's corn sweetener operation costs consumers $10, and every $1 of profits earned by its ethanol operation costs taxpayers $30."

In 1996, ADM was the subject of the largest price fixing investigation in history. Senior ADM executives were indicted on criminal charges for engaging in price-fixing with in the international lysine market. Three of ADM's top officials, including vice chairman Michael Andreas, were sentenced to federal prison in 1999 and the company was fined $100 million, the largest antitrust fine ever. ADM's annual report 20

Moldy corn is real cheap. It burns just as well but the animals don't like it, and it screws up the milk.

Average yield per acre is about 3 tons. The cost of production per acre is roughly 75 to 100 dollars per acre.( These are prices including fertilizer and seeding when we planted in the 90's. Land rental cost was

John

What they dont' talk about is that an oil or gas boiler/furnace will run at

T> >

I have been burning wood fiber pellets for 3 years and it sure beat the labor involved in cutting/splitting wood (which is available on my property or near by)..

The efficiency of a modern pellet/corn stove are up around 85%. If you don't believe the literature, just place your had on the unjacketed flue pipe of a well tuned pellet stove.

My present stove (Quadri-Fire) is capable of burning corn but will not ignite automatically unless there is about 25% mix of pellets. Once lite, it will burn until the thermostat turns it off. On pellets, it will run on automatic continuously, as long as there is a thermostat demand and fuel in the hopper. It will re-ignite automatically on pellets.

The only other maintenance is a weekly clean of the small amount of fine ash and an annual cleaning of the heat exchanger. Good quality pellets only have about 1% ash.

Not sure of these figures for corn but have heard they are similar.

If I had a good supply of corn in my Pac. NW area, I would give it a try.. Pellets presently cost me $139 a ton or about.

I can heat my very old mfg home (1152 sq/ft) on about 3 ton a year.

The stove is of marginal size, 40,000 btus but provides as much heat as I need.

I consider corn a renewable energy source while wood pellets are presently a wood by-product. The local demand for wood fiber for paper and partial board may soon drive the price of wood pellet high enough that corn my be the next alternative.

Can scrap paper be pelletized for your furnace?

Nobody's mentioned the pollution aspects of home heating. A megawatt coal plant can use technology that, AFAIK, isn't in a home furnace. In the 70s I was reading about towns in snow country requiring catalytic coverters in new construction.

calculation.

No they don't. Corn stoves are not like normal wood stoves. Most burn at around 85% efficiency.

How do they burn at such a high efficiency, Dave? I've never looked into those things.

-- Ed Huntress

My stove burns corn, or wood pellets, but doesn't self ignite. I get corn for $80.00 per ton, while local wood pellets started the season at $150. per ton. I burnt a ton of wood pellets 1st because they were easy to handle in

I'm sure it can. But, afaik, they are only pelletizing saw dust at present. Demands for wood pellets have gone up tremedously. In fact, they're tough to find around here.

If I had the time, I would build a stove similar to a pellet stove but with a larger auger so it could handle wood chips. My thought is you could get all the free wood you wanted delivered to your door from one of many tree triming companies.

The new wood pellet and corn stoves are cleaner than most gas heaters. The corn stoves are considered CO2 neutral because the corn consumes CO2 when it is grown, then releases it when it's burned.

As you mentioned, small residential units cannot compete with large electric plants though.

They are a sealed unit. They don't use a traditional chimney, so you're not wasting all that heat up your flue. Instead, they use a blower that controls the amount of air that is introduced into the fire. Then, the waste gasses are blown out through a vent in the wall. They also have a series of tubes inside the burn box that air is blown through to transfer the heat to the house.

Forcing air into the burn box makes for a very hot flame. My stove has "fingers" that stir the corn while it's burning that are made from 1/2" cold rolled steel. When my stove is on it's highest setting, those fingers glow red. I get 55,000 btu from a burn box about the size of a half loaf of bread.

That's interesting. I'll have to take a look sometime. The exhaust sounds like some of the modern gas furnaces. And stirring the corn sounds almost like burning in a fuidized bed. Does the air blow through the burning corn, or over it?

-- Ed Huntress

Who cares? Out of pocket expense is lower, period.

Dunno. If subsidizing corn farmers can offset the amount of money we send to people who want to kill us, I'm all for it.

Dave Hinz

Cite, please?

Sounds like you've got solid data to back that up. I'd love to read it.

The air blows through the corn.

Also, the combustion air is piped in from outside the house.

My Quadra Fire has a ceramic fire pot with a igniter hole in the bottom and a few dozen air holes in the side. These side hole are angled to produce a cyclone type fire. It is so hot that metal probes will burn up so the pyrometer is housed in a ceramic shield.

This heat is dispersed and eventually passes over a stainless shield and then an aluminum finned heat exchanger in the fire box and ultimately a waste heat exchanger just before going out the flue pipe.

There is a small ash trap in the bottom of the flue that is suppose to collect any fly ash but in 3 years, I have had less than a tea cup of ash. ( I get about a half gallon of ash from the fire box every ton of fuel. ) I have very little soot and only wipe the glass windows (actually they are clear ceramic) about once a week.

I can't see how this could be called less efficient than coal or oil.

Admittedly, if I had natural gas available I would switch over, just for the convenience.

Well, that is something like a fluidized bed, then. That can be a very efficient way to burn things.

That hurts your combustion efficiency because it reduces flame temperatures, but it reduces infiltration. In the tradeoff, it undoubtedly is a lot better.

-- Ed Huntress

Thanks Al,

I handn't exchanged numbers or info about corn with anyone since I would have to purchase corn from a feed store and doubt that I could get it for anything near the cost of pellets.

We grow wood, not corn, where I live.

Steve