Termites: Bane of Home Owners, Boon to Ethanol Production
Researchers at the University of Florida are reporting that the enzymes in the guts of termites could provide a powerful tool for making ethanol from non-food woody plants.
In an upcoming review paper, professor Michael Scharf details how termites — which cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to houses in the US alone each year — might actually prove useful for something that most people could never have envisioned.
Through millions of years of evolution, termites have filled a niche in the animal world that takes precise chemical coordination between the digestive enzymes and microbes in their guts to turn the wood that they eat into sugars which can then be used to “fuel” the termite.
It is this seemingly easy transformation of wood into sugar in the termite guts that holds the promise for future ethanol production, because, once you have the sugar, it’s easy to make ethanol through fermentation.
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Making ethanol from food crops such as corn (as is currently done) is quite controversial and, some argue, contributes to the starvation of millions of people worldwide. The next generation of ethanol, called cellulosic ethanol, will most likely be made from non-food crops such as switchgrass, wood chips and miscanthus.
The problem with cellulosic ethanol is that it takes a lot of resources and energy to convert the cellulose into sugars using current technology. The lessons we can learn from the termite guts could bring these costs way down.
Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, Dr. Scharf suggests that nature has already done the work for us over millions of years. The work of Scharf and others in deciphering the enzymes and chemical interactions involved in turning wood into sugar has already resulted in the discovery of new enzymes that appear to be useful for ethanol production.
As Dr. Scharf Says:
“There are many directions that the science can now head. First, we now have the ability to produce and test individual enzymes for their competency and roles in [woody plant] degradation. Once we identify major players (from termites), we can test combinations that may have applications in making bioethanol production more feasible from existing feedstocks, and maybe even other feedstocks that aren’t on our radar screens yet.”
Makes a ton of sense to me. Let’s just hope it doesn’t disappear into obscurity like so much science does these days.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Eurekalert
This is a great revelation. It’s almost a Homer Simpson “do-oh!” moment, though. In hind sight, one can see the obviousness of this.
Hopefully politicians, environmentalist and big business won’t jam there nasty little fingers into this and kill it, or shelve it.
Heck! This could open up a whole new way o’ life…termite wranglin’. Can you just imagine a herd of a billion of the little buggers, all branded and headin’ fer the railhead to be shipped to the processing plant! Yee-haw!
Joking aside, even I can see the potential in this. Let’s hope more relevant and influential minds can, too.
LonnieB,
That’s how I felt too, kind of like “well, duh.”
I don’t think I’d like to be a termite wrangler though.
“I don’t think I’d like to be a termite wrangler though.”
Yeah, I imagine brandin’ time would be a real pain. Yer cuttin’ horse could end up squashin’ the little dawgies and you’d have to use thread to rope an’ tie ‘em.
Instead of using food crops for fuel, fuel crops (cellulose) could be used for food.
I’m sure someone will wait until the price of fuel spikes and be outraged!
Hi Brian;
Fascinating. Your stories on ethanol remind me a great deal of the reports many years ago on “cold fusion”.
Could you please be so kind as to post the name or names of the scientific journal or journals in which the research on the topics on ethanol you cite was published. Until then, I will assign your news reporting to the “cold fusion” file.
Alternatively, I would certainly be willing to accept and circulate widely with your article a statement from the scientists you cited in which they give a summary of their research on the topics about which you wrote. Afterall, such scientific findings would make gasoline so cheap that no oil would likely be needed to make gasoline. What a dramatic breakthrough. I look forward to seeing the information you post.
Thank you for your kindness. Best regards,
Gary Schwendiman,Ph.D.
Actually my comment should have been addressed to both Nick and Brian and posted after both articles. I would appreciate it if you could make such an adjustment.
Gary,
I have to say, I don’t know what Brian you’re talking about and what other post you meant to comment on. It certainly doesn’t sound like you meant to comment on this post, as I have linked to the source of the article which gives information on the journal in which the termite research will be published.
With the Asian populations exploding and acquiring access to America as we speak, in deals to exchange citizenship for Military service,likewise for Mexicans, we can only expect a population explosion and subsequent dilution of food supplies here! Using plant matter for any other than food production is fool hardy, and will cause starvation for certain! We must work at Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal and geo-thermal sources first! and consider battery cars a “Done Deal”. Aside from Algae farms for Bio-Diesel, a non food item, requiring non arable land only, most other schemes steal from our food production potential to make Ethanol, which is still being burnt in gasoline specific engines, at extremely low efficiencies? We need Ethanol specific engines, to realize their really great potential at replacing gasoline, but this is blocked by “Big Oil”, as was Euro-Diesels, for a full 40 % gain in efficiency due to high compression engines - so, America, we remain locked in an impossible to maintain “Status Quo”, and facing the demise of our very currency as a victim of this paradox! When the dam busts! When the dollar dies, and when “Big Oil” loses its stranglehold on our necks, we will re-build a better less oil dependent America . Until then nothing can change! We can’t even agree on the medicade we voted in majority for! What a debacle! What a Country! We don’t have enough trees for the wood it would take to fuel us for a single day! Your sense of proportions, way off with respect to the humongous amount of oil based energy consumed daily in the U.S.A. We face paradigm shifts as never before on earth caused by oil shortages soon to befall us! “Duck and Cover America! Duck and Cover!”