Yes folks some idiots are actually burning corn in stoves as a medium for heating their homes.
Those normally wonderful and tasty sweet kernels of corn that we chew off of the cobb are now being used by some supposed green folks as a heating fuel. Some enterprising morons in the Midwest and Northeast are selling stoves that burn dried corn kernels. These stoves are fitted with hoppers in which the kernels are stored and then fed into the stove via an auger. The flow characteristics of the dried kernels allow this "pellet like" fuel to easily stoke the fire in the stove. The dried corn kernels have a heating value in excess of 7,000 BTUs per pound, a value that is similar to hardwood. http://www.cornstoves.info/amaiz_hm.html
Corn kernels have the following composition: 8% protein, 3% oil, 62% starch and 27% water. You have all see the "Nutrition Facts" on food labels. Using the chemical composition of corn listed above, a bushel of corn that weighs 56 pounds has some 100,000 food Calories. If we assume for the moment we could get all of our 2,000 Calories a day from just eating corn, a bushel of corn would feed an adult for almost fifty days. http://www.ansc.purdue.edu/swine/swineday/sday96/psd16-96.htm
Heating a house with corn instead of wood, natural gas, or propane is a crime against humanity and animals. These folks who think they are green are robbing some starving person of protein, lipids and carbohydrates. If they want to heat their homes with biomass they should burn wood in their stoves. Wood has cellulose and lignin that are not digestible by humans, but also have a heat of combustion of approximately 7,000 BTUs per pound. The folks who use corn kernels in their stoves enjoy the ease of filling the hopper with corn rather than splitting logs. As punishment for their crimes against humanity, their sentence should be to split logs all day long.
This week's Gangrene Award, kind of like the "Green Darwin Award", for the dumbest green technology goes to the folks who invented or use corn stoves. Theese folks who think CORN stands for "Cretins Organizing Reduced Nutrition".
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Australian Gasifier
This week’s gangrene award goes to a couple of Australians who believe they are saving the planet by operating their automobile on wood. Yes this enterprising couple from down-under have developed a gasification trailer that they pull behind their large van . The gasifier housed in the trailer coverts wood and water to a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide (syngas) by a process of partial combustion. The syngas is then fed into the fuel injection system of their van as a gasoline substitute. http://members.tripod.com/~highforest/woodgas/woodfired.html
On the surface this all seems wonderful and very green. Operating a vehicle on felled eucalyptus trees is something most would applaud as substituting fossil fuel for renewable fuel. Let’s now look at the efficiency of their Rube Goldberg vehicle with a caboose. They claim they can travel 2 kilometers for each kilogram of dried wood they “burn”. A kilogram of dried wood has an energy content of 16,500 BTUs so their contraption travels some 2 kilometers or 1.25 miles on 16,500 BTUs. The 16,500 BTUs is the energy content of 0.143 gallons of gasoline. Dividing the miles by the volume of gasoline equivalent we get an effective fuel efficiency of 8.74 miles per gallon. Not bad back in 1971 when most American cars weighed 5,000 pounds and had similar fuel efficiency. Now that we are in the 21st century even the Hummer H2 can beat this Aussie contraption by a mile. The good news for the world is GM is finally admitting that the Hummer is a Bummer and this gasification technology never made it out of Darwin.
As you know the Gangrene Award is like a Green Darwin Award so that this week’s winner from Darwin Australia is like killing two birds with one stone. I was a little scared making this week’s nomination as the couple is very religious and the signs on their van exclaim “righteousness exalts a nation” and “pray for our nation”. Now that they have their Gangrene Award hanging above their fireplace they can claim that GAS stands for Gigantic Australian Stupidity.
On the surface this all seems wonderful and very green. Operating a vehicle on felled eucalyptus trees is something most would applaud as substituting fossil fuel for renewable fuel. Let’s now look at the efficiency of their Rube Goldberg vehicle with a caboose. They claim they can travel 2 kilometers for each kilogram of dried wood they “burn”. A kilogram of dried wood has an energy content of 16,500 BTUs so their contraption travels some 2 kilometers or 1.25 miles on 16,500 BTUs. The 16,500 BTUs is the energy content of 0.143 gallons of gasoline. Dividing the miles by the volume of gasoline equivalent we get an effective fuel efficiency of 8.74 miles per gallon. Not bad back in 1971 when most American cars weighed 5,000 pounds and had similar fuel efficiency. Now that we are in the 21st century even the Hummer H2 can beat this Aussie contraption by a mile. The good news for the world is GM is finally admitting that the Hummer is a Bummer and this gasification technology never made it out of Darwin.
As you know the Gangrene Award is like a Green Darwin Award so that this week’s winner from Darwin Australia is like killing two birds with one stone. I was a little scared making this week’s nomination as the couple is very religious and the signs on their van exclaim “righteousness exalts a nation” and “pray for our nation”. Now that they have their Gangrene Award hanging above their fireplace they can claim that GAS stands for Gigantic Australian Stupidity.
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