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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for the Weather Notebook's special series on global climate change.

More and more Americans are looking to alternative, renewable fuels to cut down on the emissions from fossil fuels which may be warming the planet. In the farm state of South Dakota, some people are combining the home-heating ways of the pioneers with new technology. Correspondent Curt Nickisch has the story.

Pioneers on the Great Plains used iron stoves to burn cow manure, corncobs and wood chips to warm their homes. Eventually propane and natural gas won out for their ease of use. But highly efficient wood burning stoves have now been adapted to burn something that's plentiful in this farm state: corn.

Farmer Kevin Pravecek dumps the hard, yellow kernels into his stove. Corn is in such good supply, it's relatively cheap.

KP: Since I raise corn and it's not worth nothing, I figured just as well burn it.

Corn heats as well as most types of wood, and Pravecek's stove is more efficient than his oil furnace.

It makes sense to other farmers, too. Mike Dowling says, unlike fossil fuels, he can always grow more when he runs out.

MD: I don't feel as guilty leaving the door open with the corn burner as I would with the natural gas, because I'm not wasting a natural resource. I personally cannot replace that. However corn I can replace quite easily.

And the stoves have another advantage over fuels that produce greenhouse gases: corn burns so cleanly - less than a gram of emissions per hour - that the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't even require manufacturers to analyze the emissions. Meanwhile, farmers here are finding that by burning the kernels they grow, it's saving them a bushel.

In Sioux Falls, this is Curt Nickisch.

The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. Our series on global climate change is supported by the Roy A. Hunt Foundation and the New England Science Center Collaborative. Related Links

Corn Burning Facts
http://www.gov.on.ca/OMAFRA/english/crops/facts/93-023.htm