Most farmers are familiar with the concept of going to the bush to cut fuel for the winter. What if they went to the corn field for fuel instead? Amid the controversy over whether ethanol production takes out more energy than it delivers, Better Farming decided to go one step closer to the farm in search of a cheap energy source. We went looking on the Internet for information about the heating value in shelled grain corn and found it in a November, 2001, newsletter from the University of Illinois. Paul Mariman, University of Illinois extension, and Doug Crolus, energy use manager for Illinois Power (retired), wrote that a pound of shelled corn contains 6,300 British Thermal Units (BTUs) of energy. A bushel of corn has almost the same energy potential as four gallons of propane, 3.5 times as much as a therm of natural gas, 2.7 times as much as a gallon of kerosene, 103 kWh of electricity or 2.52 gallons of oil. One cord of hardwood contains energy equivalent to 59 bushels of corn.
How well corn matches up economically depends on the cost of traditional fuels, and the efficiency of the furnaces and stoves used, Mariman and Crolus wrote. With $2-a-bushel corn firing a burner with a 70 per cent efficiency rating, propane burned in a furnace rated at 90 per cent efficiency would have to be priced at 67 cents per gallon to match it. An older propane furnace operating at 65 per cent efficiency would have to be using propane costing 48 cents a gallon in order to be cost-competitive.
Why aren't there more corn stoves around? Maybe it's that eternal optimism built into farmers. "Operating cost comparisons for burning corn look less favourable at a $2.40-a-bushel corn price," the newsletter says. That was before energy costs started going through the roof, however.
This corn is pretty good stuff for heating. Funny how the price of it hasn't gone up while the price of propane, fuel oil and even firewood certainly has.BF
