So would anyone really want to burn corn?   Isn't corn food?   Does it really burn?  Is it economical to burn?   Is there anything else that this product will burn if I don't want to burn corn?

Well the answer to all of those questions is YES!   And here is why!

Corn is a a product which is available just about anywhere as a feed for animals.    If there is a farm nearby with animals, chances are there is some corn used as feed.   

Because of this widespread use of corn, a lot of it is grown!   And when there is a high level of availability, the cost for it is usually low.... which is why people started to look at using it as a fuel in the first place.

And corn as a fuel does burn well!   The average BTUs found in a bushel of corn is 504,000 BTUs - thats a lot of heat!   If corn weighs on the average of 56# per bushel (there is some slight variation due to growing conditions), then every pound contains 9000 BTUs.   So corn does have the heat available when burned.

Now lets compare that to some common fuels used to heat homes today.   Fuel oil has on the average 140,000 BTUs per gallon.   And a gallon of propane only contains 91,000 BTUs.   Lets stack those together to see how they compare:

As you can see, the potential for corn as a fuel is significant - and is significantly cheaper too!   Lets use those facts above to see how much $10.00 of each fuel will buy you.

Fuel oil - $10.00 will buy you 4.4 gallons, which is 622,222 BTUs.

Propane - $10.00 will buy you 3.64 gallons, which is 455,000 BTUs.

Now, look at what corn will do for you!

CORN  - $10.00 will buy you only 2.67 bushels of fuel.  But it gets you a WHOPPING 1,344,000 BTUs of heat!   As you can see its very easy to realize a 50 - 60% fuel cost savings using corn!

And - sometimes a farmer will have some "bad" corn that cannot be fed to any animal.   Last year I bought some of that corn at $2.50 per bushel....  meaning its possible to find even cheaper fuel if you do some searching.

Now lets do a "what if" - what if corn is not available in your area or is not feasable to obtain in your area.   Can you use wood pellets?   Absolutely!   Are they economical?  Yes they are!  But, in general they are a bit more expensive to burn than corn.

Wood pellets are currently selling for approximately $225/ ton, in bags.   Corn when translated is $ 205/ ton (2000 pounds/56 pounds per bushel = 35.7 bushels per ton.  35.7 bushels x $3.75 per bushel = $134/ ton).  Thats only $91 more per ton, and with most homes using around 6 or 7 tons, the extra cost is around $550 year if the BTUs are similar.   With pellet BTUs varying a bit depending on the wood used to make them, this may be slightly different but significantly so.