PHOTO: Eye of Science/Photo Researchers

Creative destruction: A scanning electron micrograph shows two termites hard at work.

Finding a cheaper way to make ethanol from biological waste products is a top priority around the world. Researchers at dozens of companies addressing the problem say they may find the answer in tiny bioreactors that turn wood into sugar. These centimeter-long chemical factories aren’t the product of a government lab or an industry consortium but of millions of years

Right now, the primary feedstock for ethanol produced in the United States is corn. Last year, nearly 2 billion bushels, representing one-fifth of the U.S. corn harvest, were used to produce automotive fuel. The resulting 18 billion liters of ethanol were enough to meet roughly 4 percent of the country’s 1.45‑billion-liter-a-day fuel demand. The U.S. Department of Energy’s goal is to replace 30 percent of the gasoline with biofuels by 2030.

But as demand for ethanol increases and dozens of refining plants for the fuel come online, the competition between food and fuel is causing the price of corn to pop. This has consequences well beyond U.S. borders: 70 percent of the corn imported by other countries is grown in the United States.

The search is on for a way to end the food-vs.-fuel competition by converting woody plant matter to simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol as readily as starch-laden ears of corn are today. Corn would remain food for humans and livestock, while cornstalks and other biomass, such as switchgrass and even the grass clippings from your lawn, would be turned into fuel.

But getting a cornstalk into your fuel tank is easier said than done. Nature has made most trees and plants resistant to being broken down. Scientists all over the world are exploring ways of converting woody mass to ethanol more efficiently—everything from devising chemicals to break down cellulose to genetically engineering plants that can be turned more readily into sugar. Getting at the termites’ secrets is just one approach, but it’s a promising one. Termites certainly have what it takes to overcome nature’s recalcitrance [see photo, “Creative Destruction”], but what exactly is it?