Could microbes in the stomachs of termites hold a secret to combating climate change?

According to The Atlantic, the efficient system that the insects use to transform wood into fuel has become the “Deus ex termita” of alternative energy sources:

Where humans have failed, the termite succeeds—spectacularly. A worker termite tears off a piece of wood with its mandibles and lets its guts work on it like a molecular wrecking yard, stripping away sugars, CO2, hydrogen, and methane with 90 percent efficiency. The little biorefineries inside each termite allow the insects to eat up $11 billion in U.S. property every year. But some scientists and policy makers believe they may also make the termite a sort of biotech Rumpelstiltskin, able to spin straw—or grass, or wood by-products—into something much more valuable. Offer a termite this page, and its microbial helpers will break it down into two liters of hydrogen, enough to drive more than six miles in a fuel-cell car. If we could turn wood waste into fuel with even a fraction of the termite’s efficiency, we could run our economy on sawdust, lawn clippings, and old magazines.

And so the termite may be poised for its moment in the sun. Speaking last year about moving toward a biofuel economy, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman pointed to the termite-to-tank concept, asserting, “We know this can be done.”

Unlikely as it may seem, researchers with the Department of Energy’s three Bioenergy Research Centers — which has $375 million in funding — are investigating termites and other systems that exist in nature for breaking down resources for energy.

It will likely be decades before we have termite-generated cellulose energy coursing through our laptops, but the innovation at work is inspiring, don’t you think?

Thank you to Alexi Wisher for sending me the fantastic article!

Photo: Exterminator Brooklyn