Termite Cellulose Conversion Research

Picked up another bit of encouraging news in the press today. A group of scientists have begun the process of determining how termites digest wood. So far they have separated out a potpourri of enzymes from the insects gut that must be responsible for the breakdown of wood cellulose. This is work that I can support whole heartedly even though it is a very beginning.

As I have already posted, the best method currently available to upgrade a wood based feedstock is to use slow pyrolysis to produce a black acidic liquid at a 70% yield. It looks like oil but it is not. For it to be usable, additional reforming would be needed, and the silence on that subject is not promising. The only positive benefit that I can see using that method is ease of transportation. All this reforming and chemical processing begs the question of actual process energy efficiency.

Yet wood chips are the one biological feedstock that is sufficient to our needs, actually need to be collected in order to properly maintain the health and vigor of our woodlands and forests, and also collects nutrients from deep down that can then be put into our croplands.

And the really frustrating aspect of this feed stock is that cellulose is a molecule produced chemically from long chains of tied together glucose molecules. The fact is that our forests are arguably forests of almost one hundred percent sugar and water that we cannot touch at the moment. Anything that successfully releases that sugar immediately allows the conversion of those sugars into alcohol and thus into ethanol fuel. This can be a wonderful fix to our pending loss of fossil fuel as a transportation energy source.

Simply allowing the material to rot releases the bulk of the material back into the atmosphere as CO2 without any serious gain to ourselves. The soil gain is actually comparatively negligible although this seems to go against common sense. That is why we would like to at least convert a lot of it into charcoal in order to use it as a near surface nutrient sponge.

Now we have a biological research strategy that could actually take us to an industrial production protocol that is capable of converting the global wood chip feed stock that can be readily produced through simple good forest management into a feed stock for ethanol.

Of course, the first painful step is to discover what path ways are been utilized by the digestive processes of a termite. Their extraordinary high efficiency is very compelling and that suggests that the reaction pathway will turn out to be super efficient when we actually can replicate it in a bottle. My only comment is to wonder that no one has tried this already or even done some of the basic research. Of course, there may be an extensive literature out there and we are actually seeing ongoing work been trumpeted as a new idea.

Back in the middle of the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for scientists chasing a new idea to first quietly go to the various scientific journals produced in the late nineteenth century in German to make absolutely sure it was not a new idea. Those boys had a head start on everybody when it came to chemistry and the depth to explore a lot of avenues.

I will be looking for more literature on this subject because it is very important to the future of agriculture and fuel production.

Methane fears

We have had a lot of enthusiasm for methane lately for its potential as a so called greenhouse gas.

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7a.html

Methane is a very strong greenhouse gas. Since 1750, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by more than 150%. The primary sources for the additional methane added to the atmosphere (in order of importance) are: rice cultivation; domestic grazing animals; termites; landfills; coal mining; and, oil and gas extraction. Anaerobic conditions associated with rice paddy flooding results in the formation of methane gas. However, an accurate estimate of how much methane is being produced from rice paddies has been difficult to ascertain. More than 60% of all rice paddies are found in India and China where scientific data concerning emission rates are unavailable. Nevertheless, scientists believe that the contribution of rice paddies is large because this form of crop production has more than doubled since 1950. Grazing animals release methane to the environment as a result of herbaceous digestion. Some researchers believe the addition of methane from this source has more than quadrupled over the last century. Termites also release methane through similar processes. Land-use change in the tropics, due to deforestation, ranching, and farming, may be causing termite numbers to expand. If this assumption is correct, the contribution from these insects may be important. Methane is also released from landfills, coal mines, and gas and oil drilling. Landfills produce methane as organic wastes decompose over time. Coal, oil, and natural gas deposits release methane to the atmosphere when these deposits are excavated or drilled.

Table 7a-1: Average composition of the atmosphere up to an altitude of 25 km.

Gas Name	Chemical Formula	Percent Volume
Nitrogen	N2	78.08%
Oxygen	O2	20.95%
*Water	H2O	0 to 4%
Argon	Ar	0.93%
*Carbon Dioxide	CO2	0.0360%
Neon	Ne	0.0018%
Helium	He	0.0005%
*Methane	CH4	0.00017%
Hydrogen	H2	0.00005%
*Nitrous Oxide	N2O	0.00003%
*Ozone	O3	0.000004%

I want you to observe that everything in this list is at its lowest oxygenation level with the sole exception of methane. Also observe that CO2 is 200 times more available. This is true because methane is almost as good a rocket fuel as hydrogen. We usually call it natural gas when we use it to heat our homes. In fact, it is the one gas that has all the cards stacked against its survival.

Even with all the rice paddies, termites and cows hard at work producing methane and all the plants on earth consuming CO2 and nothing consuming methane except oxidizers, CO2 content exceeds CH4 content by a factor of 200.

This entry also makes the claim that since 1750, methane content has increased 150%. Who was measuring? Most certainly this has to be an educated guess linking human population growth and normal related agricultural usage to the current regime. In other words, rubbish has discovered a neat new way to produce methane.

The point is that CH4 is produced in normal biomass combustion and almost as swiftly consumed. This is not true at all for carbon dioxide.

Yesterday we addressed sustainable biochar production. Much concern was expressed over the production of combustibles like CH4 that will escape into the atmosphere. And a natural earthen field kiln will lose a lot of combustibles in this manner and not just methane. My description of the inexpensive modified incinerator design took advantage of that out gassing to fuel a second high temperature oven whose heat was then used to accelerate the carbonization process.

That solution is possibly available to industrialized agriculture. It is certainly not an option for everyone else, and may be suspect even were the equipment is available. Of course even more expensive systems can be deployed for a very small incremental gain.

The point that I want to make is that the primitive earthen kiln and my incinerator are separated only by efficiency. I would reasonably expect perhaps twice as much product to be produced. This cannot be accomplished with a sharp increase in haulage costs. I also point out that the jury is truly out as to the quality of the end product. The kiln promises to produce a more uniform end product but that may not be as advantageous.

In either case, gases are produced once a year for any plot of land and are then swiftly mopped up by the local environment.

The objective after all is to put carbon into the soil for a long time. Both these techniques do just that. The only other technique that convincingly does the same thing is the growth of new forests. Every other agricultural process that we have created is in a constant struggle to just maintain carbon content and related fertility. Terra preta promises to end this ten thousand year struggle forever.

Every subsistence farmer now has the option of either burning all his plant waste out in the open field as he has done forever, or building an earthen kiln and producing a few tons of Biochar as fertilizer for next year’s crop. He does not need a dime from his government to do this nor does he need any special equipment that he does not already have. He had no other choice before and has been the source of monster smoke clouds out of Asia’s rainforests. Now those smoke clouds can become a fraction of what they are today while he mops up the carbon for us and strengthens his farms fertility.