At my very first job at a newspaper, which was actually an internship, I was sent out on the second day to cover a presentation touting the investment opportunities of worms. The pitchman talked about the wonderful capabiities of worms, how they could attack a pile of sewage, chomp their way to bliss and excrete something like soil, saving governments millions in their sewage treatment costs. This was about 30 years ago, so the details are a bit vague at this point about just how it was that worms performed their magic.
Despite that introduction to the news business, I kept at it. So I couldn't help but think of that worm presentation when I read this story.
Two key thoughts while reading this:
--Ravenous bugs as a source of petroleum might turn out to be along the lines of worms-to-dirt. But if this experiment doesn't develop, maybe another one will. There are dozens of initiatives like this that have picked up steam in recent years; hundreds actually, and maybe thousands. The lamentation heard now is "why wasn't the federal government doing this all these years?" The reason is because government is set up to put out fires, educate children, catch criminals, build an army, and so on. Government development of transformative technologies happens occasionally, but usually isn't part of its portfolio.
But tack on a few dollars to the price of gasoline, and creative destruction takes over. An energy policy of high gasoline taxes might have gotten these bugs into action a long time ago.
--There is a reference in the story to an area the size of Chicago being necessary to produce all the US oil needs if this process could be commercialized. That doesn't seem like a lot. In fact, it seems tiny, when you consider the enormous amount of land necessary for wind farms or solar panels, just to produce enough electricity for tens of thousands of homes. It also seems small in contrast to the message sent by the maps developed by Cornell professor and long-time ethanol critic David Pimentel, showing that every square inch of the lower 49 of the US would need to be growing soybeans just to have biodiesel replace all current diesel usage.
If this bug-to-oil technology takes off, you could take all the farms now growing corn for ethanol, and turn them into bug farms. There's plenty of room.
Nice Co-relationship recalled. May be similar sort of tiny creatures may help and support us (Humans) out of the present crises of highly diversified nature i.e from Fuel/Enery shortage worries,food Commodities chaotic situations and highly polluted Environment we are contributing to this Planet "Our habitat' The Earth.
Regards