No worse that farmers and other people in the midwest burning corn in their corn stoves when the price of natural gas and propane shot through the roof.
People have been burning corn and other consumables for centuries. You can burn corn stover too, and that is widely done in the midwest and Canada. Bale up the stover in a big round bale, stuff it into an outdoor biomass furnace and you’re done feeding your heat system for the entire day.
Corn stoves are like wood pellet stoves, only with a shaker to get the clinker to drop down.
Gasoline consumption: 41 billion litres in 2010 (CDN)
% ethanol per litre of gas: 10%
1 acre of corn = 1,200 L of ethanol..
1 acre of corn = 7,110 lbs of corn...
If I did my math correctly, that's (approx) 3.3 million acres of corn, which comes to 27 billion pounds of corn lost to gas tanks, rather than dinner tables, or feed lots, or many other products, per year.
Think again......and I didn't even include diesel, home heating, etc.