Termites may solve fuel woes

by Gene on Nov. 28th, 2007
in Life Science, Energy Transformations, and Flow of Matter and Energy

comments

The fuel of the future?: Termite guts break down cellulose into a form that could be used for fuel.
Courtesy Velo Steve

Scientists for the US Department of Energy are studying termites in hopes of developing new sources of fuel.

Termites eat wood. Wood is made of a tough material called cellulose. There’s an awful lot of cellulose in the world, and its easy to grow, making it an ideal raw material for making ethanol. Except – it’s really, really hard to turn cellulose into ethane (natural gas). It’s much easier to make ethanol out of food crops like corn – but that creates problems of its own.

Termites, however, have microbes in their stomachs which break down cellulose quickly and efficiently, as anyone who’s ever had a termite infestation in their house knows. Scientists hope to figure out how the microbes do their job, and then duplicate the process to help fill the nation’s energy needs.

The incomparable Cecil Adams weighs in with his thoughts on cellulose-based ethanol.

Average:

Your Comments, Thoughts, Questions, Ideas

JARVIS says:

This may be factual, but not practical. Next thing you know, we are going to be breeding termites to fill a tank of gas.

posted on Wed, 04/30/2008 - 10:13am

Gene says:

It's more likely that we would try to figure out what chemicals a termite produces to digest wood, and then try to duplicate those chemicals in the lab.

posted on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 12:40pm

Post new comment

Explore

« prev. next »
¡ RaNdOm !

Site Navigation