That Termite Eating Your House May Save the Planet!

Termites are pests, right? Destructive, costly, pain-in-the-rear insects that can literally bring your house down around your ears if you don't catch and eliminate them fast enough.

But one scientist, Steven Chu, renowned for sharing the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics, is studying termites in hopes of developing an efficient way of producing an alternative energy to replace the fossil fuels now indicted as the major culprit in global warming. Apparently termites can turn cellulose-your wooden house-into ethanol, a fuel that burns much more cleanly than petroleum-based fossil fuels.

Ethanol is currently being produced in the U.S. Brazil, and other countries, but so far the process is costly, both in terms of money and energy expended. But Chu believes that if he can crack the secret of how termites manage the feat, the process may be replicated by humans. If he solves this riddle, the raw materials won't necessarily be wood, but grain husks, switch grass-any cellulose-based material, in fact-which means any plant material. A cost-efficient ethanol capable of running automobiles and as fuel for heating homes would revolutionize the energy industry and slow down and possibly even reverse manmade global warming.

Not a bad accomplishment for an annoying little pest!