Can Termite Enzymes Solve the Cellulosic Ethanol Dilemma?

[bobbobwhite]

was recently informed that the microbial stew in a termite's gut is the most efficient known transformer of cellulose to sugar. as sugar is the food source that ultimately results in our production of alcohol which can be used as alternative fuel, doesn't it make sense to synthesize the termite's digestive/sugar production microbial system to provide the most efficient way of producing alcohol from by far the largest source of the least expensive raw material...cellulose?

or, have we already achieved an equal or superior process? thanks for your informed comments.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

A lot of ideas that work in theory can be difficult to work in practice, especially at scale and cost competitive with other alternatives. Here's an recent article on the difficulties in getting cellulosic ethanol technologies to the market:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...l-falling-far-short-of-the-hype/#47421bd5505f

It may be possible that not enough research has been done on using termite enzymes to digest cellulose, however, so it could be possible that biotechnological approaches might make cellulosic ethanol commercially feasible in the future.