Well, OK, not your next car, and not directly—but I’m willing to bet that’s the way things are heading. I’ve been betting on hydrogen fuel cells as the future of power generation (and not just for your car, either) ever since our time in Vancouver when I first heard the story of the remarkable Dr. Geoffrey Ballard (who died early this month at the age of 76) and the company he founded, Ballard Power Systems. The potential for replacing the internal combustion engine and vast coal plants with a power source that produces nothing but water (which in many parts of the world would qualify as a secondary benefit) is staggeringly wonderful—if we can solve two problems: one, storage of hydrogen, which is of course a highly volatile element; and two, finding a way to produce hydrogen that doesn’t cause its own set of environmental problems (as, for instance, cracking natural gas would).I think we might now have a leading contender for solution #2: termites. In an article in the latest Atlantic titled “Gut Reactions,” Lisa Margonelli reports on recent discoveries about how termites break down plant material into food in their third gut (or, more accurately, about the microbes, many of which exist nowhere else, which do it for them) and the exciting possibilities those discoveries raise. She of course, and quite rightly, takes this in several different directions, but the line that caught me was right in the beginning:
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.
I understand that scientists want to take each one of those tens of thousands of microbes and study each one thoroughly—there’s a lot of knowledge there, and a lot of doctoral theses to go with it. Along the way, though, I hope they don’t forget to do the most practical thing: follow ArcTech’s example.
The Virginia-based company ArcTech trained termites to eat coal, and then rummaged through their guts to find the microorganisms best at turning coal into methane. It cultured those microorganisms and now feeds them coal; the company plans to use the methane they produce to make electricity, and is already selling the by-products, including one used by farmers as a soil additive. ArcTech says this method eliminates virtually all greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-based electricity production.
Let’s go and do likewise to provide fuel for our fuel cells, and maybe sooner than you think, you’ll be able to look down at your brand new car and think, “This is powered by termites.”
Rob,
I grew up in the south and found your article remarkably entertaining. The thought that this could be a “cottage industry” in my home state of Florida struck me with a mad case of the giggles.
Seriously though, anything that reduces are foot print on this planet, reduces are reliance on foreign oil, and helps create a new industry is terrific. I am so tired of swapping blood for oil, go termites!
oops, our foot print on this planet, reduces our reliance on foreign oil….