Question on Corn Stoves
Hi,
I own an older home (built 1932) in northern Ohio and I would like to switch to a corn stove or furnace for heating the entire house (3,225 sq. ft, not including the basement). My house has three fire places, one on each floor, which are working, but I understand corn is a cleaner burning fuel in addition to being less expensive. I’ve read through many comments on the internet while searching for info on corn stoves, but many of the reviews and comments I have found are anywhere from 10 years to a few years old. I’m hoping I can hear from members with corn stoves as to the pros and cons. Also, I am having the basement remodeled into an apartment which I will rent, and would also like to heat that with corn as well. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Jane
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Replies
Be sure not to use popcorn.
If you live on a farm and have a surplus of corn that will not be otherwise used as human or animal feed, then perhaps it makes sense to burn it.
But the use of a basic foodstock, such as corn, for fueling cars or heating homes only contributes to global food shortages, increased food costs, and hunger, malnutrition and starvation.
There are better ways to heat a house.
To Robert R., in my research on corn stoves, I've learned that corn for fuel is not the same as corn for food. That they are not in competition and using fuel corn does not contribute to food shortage. That being said, if you can offer information on corn stoves as I asked for initially, I would appreciate it. Otherwise, I can do without the preaching, especially from a stranger. My choices are mine just as yours are yours and since you wouldn't tolerate a stranger telling you what you should or shouldn't use in heating your home, don't expect me to tolerate your doing so with me, because I won't tolerate it, and it's hypocritical of you to do so. If you cannot answer my question on corn stoves, then keep your opinions to yourself as to what I can or cannot, should or should not burn for fuel.
Sorry, My Tudor Home, but if you ask a question on a green building site you're going to get answers that put each practice into the broader issue of global sustainability. You're wrong about the competition between food and fuel and there is nothing "hypocritical" about pointing that out.
If we want to leave a livable world for our grandchildren then we don't get to make personal choices that disregard their impact on other people, other species and the global environment.
Food Crisis Eclipsing Climate Change
NY Sun | April 25, 2008
The campaign against climate change could be set back by the global food crisis, as foreign populations turn against measures to use foodstuffs as substitutes for fossil fuels.
With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down.
One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America's corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.
"I don't think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial," a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.
Secret Report: Biofuel Caused Food Crisis
Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
The Guardian Thursday 3 July 2008
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
Biofuels and World Hunger
Institute of Science in Society 03/11/10
Damning report confirms critic’s charge that industrial biofuels are responsible for world’s food and hunger crisis.
Biofuels are conservatively estimated to have been responsible for at least 30 percent of the global food price spike in 2008 that pushed 100 million people into poverty and drove some 30 million more into hunger, according to the report, Meals per gallon, released by the UK charity ActionAid in February 2010. The number of chronically hungry people now exceeds one billion.
To Robert R. What I said about the preaching stands. Mind your own business and stay out of mine. If you can't accept the fact that everyone is entitled to their own choices and opinions, then you were born in the wrong time period. Your much more suited to living in the times of slavery (I'm sure you would have loved the role of "Massa") or in 1933 Germany as a Nazi sympathizer. If being a member of this forum means that I have to be subjected to the narrowminded opinions and dictatorial attitudes of people like YOU, then that's enough for me to leave forum.
My Tudor Home,
Stick around. Robert's voice isn't the only one here.
Other people with advice on corn stoves will eventually post information that may be helpful.
Here's what I know: the economics of burning corn depend on the price of corn, which has been much more volatile in recent years even than the price of oil. When corn was cheap a few years ago, many farmers rushed to buy corn stoves. Now that the price of corn has risen sharply, I think the economic argument is much weaker.
So find out what your local price for corn is, and calculate the BTUs per bushel, and compare the cost to wood pellets. Then be prepared for volatility in the future.
Of course, no one knows what will happen to the price of any fuel in the future.
One idea when the price of heating a home becomes unbearable is to downsize in place. You can have your home converted to hold a small apartment with in it that you live in to reduce your costs. Insulate interior walls and seal off rooms.
Buy a combination pellet/corn stove and buy pellets during the late summer to get the best price, not sure about corn, you will have to ask around where you live. Corn forms clinkers that are worse do deal with than wood pellets and some stoves are better than others with dealing with burning issues. It is not as much fussing as a wood fireplace but not by much.
The other option is for you to get as many borders living with you as you need to reduce your monthly costs. Another headache that some are good at and others abhor.
Go to your corn stove dealers without money and push them to give you the real skinny on what you are getting yourself into. That's what I do anyway.
I don't think that Robert's first comment deserved the #2 comment by the anonymous
"MY TUDOR HOME"
Excuse me, stranger, but by asking your question in this public space you made it everyone's business.
And if you cannot understand that personal choices must be constrained by their impacts on the ability of others (both human and non-human) to make choices and to live well or even to survive, then it is you who are living on the wrong planet. For there was never a time in human history when selfishness could flourish except at the expense of the many. The historical injustices you allude to were caused by such selfish disregard for others.
My perspective is orders of magnitude more broad-minded than your own. It's ironic that the open-minded call "useful alternative information" what the closed-minded call "lecture" or "preaching". Let us hope that the attitude you articulate will become obsolete before it destroys the fragile and wonderful earth we share with each other.
More information on the heat content of dry shelled corn:
Energy content of corn: 7,000 BTU / pound or 336,000 to 392,000 BTU / bushel (depending on whether it is a 48-pound bushel or a 56-pound bushel)
Seasonal heating efficiency of the average corn stove: 60% to 70%
in my research on corn stoves, I've learned that corn for fuel is not the same as corn for food. That they are not in competition and using fuel corn does not contribute to food shortage.
I would like to point out that the competition between food stock corn and fuel corn lies in the use of arable land. You are correct that there are different types of corn for different purposes, but it is a matter of what is planted for what reason. If any country with large crop producing regions converts significant arable land to crops that cannot be consumed by humans then it most certainly effects the ability of the humans to feed themselves. Robert's research is well documented and his suggestion to examine other heating sources is reasonable.
My Tudor Home, you are completely within your rights as a human to have differing opinions and to make your own choices no matter the consequences. However, seeing that you are researching alternative power sources would it be such a far stretch for you to examine alternatives that have less immediate impacts on the rights of other humans to simply obtain nourishment. All methods of producing energy have negative consequences, but the entire point of "green" and sustainable strategies is to utilize the methods that cause the least harm. If burning a fuel source is the most cost effective method of producing heat for your home then I would urge you to examine wood pellet stoves over corn stoves. Wood pellets can make use of true waste products from industrial purposes, whereas corn stoves place your need for a temperature comfortable home in direct opposition with someone else's need for nourishment.
Who gave human beings this "right"? This is the modern fiction that has resulted in the generalized destruction of the earth's biosphere, irreversible and devastating climate change, and the first great species extinction caused by a single species of ostensibly intelligent creatures.
Not only is there no such "right", but there is a fundamental biological and ecological responsibility, shared by every member of the web of life, to sustain the planet's carrying capacity so that others - both currently living and future generations - can live.
Even for those who worship at the idol of personal freedom, freedom cannot exist unless everyone enjoys the same freedom. In other words, no one is free to deny anyone else's freedom to sustain themselves. The flip side of freedom is restraint, for neither exists without the other. Yet it is the peculiar lack of restraint on the part of modern people, Americans more than any others, that has led us to an ecological precipice.
It's time we let go of selfish adolescent myths and become mature and responsible adults. If we don't do that, and do that very soon (though it may well be too late already), then we will have forfeited our "right" to exist.
Robert I happen to agree with you as to the responsibility that we all share in sustaining the planet's carrying capacity. I have spent the last 15 years of my life through school and work experience obtaining the skills and perspectives I needed to invoke positive changes however large or small to help us become better stewards of this planet. I admire you and the work that you do, but you come on a little strong to those that may not share your same background and beliefs. I simply was trying to provide a less impassioned critique of corn stoves that My Tudor Home might listen to, because it was obvious that she was not going to listen to you.
Is the primary objective to have others come around to our way of thinking or is it to communicate through the language patterns of our audiences so that they will make better choices.
First... problem definitely was the "Popcorn" remark. Definitely pushing buttons and the buttons were pushed for sure. I am with you Dylan.. Seek first to understand, by listening deeply is what those that teach such instruct. The other side of all this is to let things go after one posting that starts an endless back and forth. For me, my lesson of last year is to stop after one round of that and move on for my and all readers sake. Robert means well. If you read his posts for a year, it all makes sense for one way to go forward toward a livable future.
We are getting there. Maybe "My Tudor home" will read for a while and pick up more than we all will know given the course of time.
Dylan,
The efficacious approach depends largely on your perspective of the immediacy of the crisis. If you believe that we still have many generations to correct our course, then "gentle" teaching may be appropriate. That's what I've done for much of my life.
But I've spent about 42 years (since I participated in my first anti-war protest at age 17) both studying the inherent wrongs of our culture and working to right them. At this point, it is clear to me that we, as a global society, are on a train rushing madly toward a precipice and about to take much of the living world down with us. There is no time to be "nice" or "gentle".
People who say "I have the right to live my life anyway I want" are no different in my perspective than a deranged person running through a crowd wielding a knife or a gun. I'm not going to waste time trying to "teach" that person a better way to act in a crowd. I'm going to knock them over and prevent them from causing harm to innocent others. And, even if that response does nothing to improve the state of mind of the deranged one, it may awaken others who normally ignore social violence and injustice that there is a threat that requires an immediate response.
And that threat is the immaturity of modern American culture. We are literally like adolescents, believing we are invincible and that the world revolves around our needs and desires. The truth that is raining down upon us in the form of monsoons and floods and tsunamis and hurricanes and wildfires and droughts and melting glaciers and rising oceans and species going extinct every day and multiple simultaneous resource wars and the rich consolidating most of the wealth while a billion people go to bed hungry - is that the earth can no longer afford our immaturity.
It is time - right now - for us to either grow up or perish. At such a time, it is not the role of teacher that will make the difference, but that of prophet.
I thought the popcorn remark was a little "good natured" humor
I think that people are often offended merely because someone else does not agree
or someone else tells them something they did not want to hear
I will give another example
someone recently suggested that square was the best building shape
I suggested that rectangular (long side facing south) is often better
My remark made this person VERY ANGRY
I catch myself getting angry at anyone who does not agree with ME
;--)
I believe the poster left after #5..
Hey John, I think the point you made backs up my post 14. "You and I" who know Robert understood the Popcorn remark and the lesson that was next added. But the poster was new here and that is the point I am somehow hoping post 14 and now 18 are making??
Seek first to understand and listen deeply.... I need to learn this as much as anyone. So saying this... I feel your pain John. Easy to get twisted up in a knot online. LOL
I’ve often heard this type of argument, and have even advocated it myself. But I’m not actually sure whether it is true – true in the sense of being an immutable law of nature. For instance, I don’t see any evidence that “freedom cannot exist unless everyone enjoys the same freedom”. If that were true then no one has ever been free, or ever will be free. As my very moral mother-in-law (RIP) said more than once, “Life is not fair.”
There are winners and there are losers. We all live at the expense of others, whether those “others” are less-fortunate humans, or lesser animals, or plants, or even very-lesser inanimate objects. Health, strength, social position, access to resources, etc, are all unevenly doled out. It may be that those with “enlightened self-interest” will conclude that it is indeed advantageous to them in the long run to restrain themselves by helping others in the short run, but I don’t see any “right” or “non-right”, one way or the other. Surely a lion has little concern for the deer that it eats. And few humans shed tears over each carrot wrenched from the ground, decapitated, gnawed, and soaked in hydrochloric acid, then dumped into a stinky hole.
I think it is worthwhile to use reasoned advocacy to promote a sustainable (for humans) use of our planet’s resources, but I think that way because I am basically selfish, which includes a selfish desire to see my offspring flourish (more than I want to see your offspring flourish -- though I concede that it may be helpful to the survival of my offspring if I allow at least a few of your offspring to survive :).