John Roach writes for National Geographic about research into the bacteria that lives in the guts of termites; the bacteria enable termites to digest wood by converting it to hydrogen.
So here’s what’s cool: researchers speculate that if we can understand how the bacteria do this, we may be able to use that information to create a new energy technology. One of the researchers, Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley
imagines a day when “little digesters” — a termite germ-derived technology — sit in people’s garages and process piles of woody waste to produce enough hydrogen to power cars and homes.
Off the grid and into the termite mound :-)
Neat. But I’ve also read that worldwide, termites produce more greenhouse gasses (CO2?) than all of man’s internal combustion engines. Of course, I’m still not sure about global warming either. (This from a guy who blogs about resistentialism?)
John
They actually touch on that on the second page of the article. Apparently termites produce proportionally less methane than cows.
I suppose we’re okay as long as we don’t teach termites to drive . . .