BioGeek's blog
Biopesticides: The Future of Pest Control?
Have you ever marveled over the natural link among things that seem as totally disparate as stale beer, fox urine, fungi, canola oil, parasitic wasps, bacteria, garlic leaves and DDT? Well, if you said “yes” (and love doing lab work), you are all set to pursue a wonderful career in the newly budding field of “biopesticides”.
If you looked down on it from outer space, the Mid-South Mississippi Delta region would appear as a gigantic green blob – one of the largest collections of biomass on the planet.
Sorghum syrup is about as traditional as it gets in rural America, particularly in the old South – where people still pour it over hot biscuits at breakfast just like they’ve done for hundreds of years – yum! Only now, they’re starting to pour it into their gas tanks, too. Well, not really, but almost!
If you’re feeling ill trying to keep up with all the strange biofuel news these days, you might want to have some lab tests run. You could have a form of E. coli poisoning, a cyanobacteria outbreak, or maybe you accidentally ingested some highly toxic fire moss or perhaps bumped into a desert locust – feared since biblical times.
If anybody is thinking of updating the 1967 hit movie, The Graduate, they need to consider making a one-syllable change in the dialog. When the guy whispers in Dustin Hoffman’s ear, he needs to say: “One word. (pause) Bioplastics!" Yes, plastic made from natural polymers appears to be getting a second wind.
It’s too bad that algae don’t have heads on their tiny little green bodies. If they did, they’d be laughing them off after what’s happened in the past few months – an incredible period that saw them rise from stagnant pond slime to $600-million superstars, thanks to the recent announcement by ExxonMobil that has set the biofuels world abuzz.
Some already are labeling it the “Great Biodiesel Shutdown of 2009,” but whatever you call it, America’s effort to supplant petroleum-based diesel with renewable biofuel is having a breakdown this year – and whether it’s just a flat tire or a major engine blowout remains to be seen.
The greatest irony of America’s 21st Century quest for energy independence is that it – whatever “it” turns out to be – most assuredly has been here all along! And none of the emerging cellulosic bioenergy feedstocks fits that description better than switchgrass, which once covered the continent from sea to shining sea! Photo courtesy Ceres, Inc.
Mankind’s greatest curse – at least since the Cro-Magnon period – has been what to do with the enormous piles of solid waste we generate. Scientists say this wasn’t such a big deal in prehistoric times, because we simply moved our campfire into a new cave upstream after we’d rendered the previous one uninhabitable.
With all the recent news about sustainable biofuel projects – including huge investments by some of our petroleum giants into non-food ethanol – it was interesting to note last month’s unique side-step by a Japanese brewery and a South American oil company. No, they won’t make beer you can either drink or pour in your gas tank. But Sapporo Breweries Ltd.
The bookies aren’t quoting “high” odds in Vegas – yet – but thousands of America’s farmers and processors are upbeat and restlessly hopeful this month after a recent ruling by the Obama White House to suspend raids on medical marijuana facilities by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Raise your hand if you ever heard of the Trabant. No fair Googling. OK, so you did anyway, and you now know that it was the world’s first mass-produced automobile made from bio-sustainable and recycled materials – mostly duroplast, a plastic resin composed of wool or cotton fiber – much of it from industrial waste.
With all the bad news lately about peanuts and salmonella, it’s probably time for somebody to point out that George Washington Carver had nothing to do with it! Sure, Carver invented hundreds of products made from this lowly root crop – but history shows he also cleaned his processing equipment! And while we’re at it, there’s no better time than now to reacquaint ourselves with Carver, a man who so revolutionized agriculture a century ago that we’re just now coming to understand.
After rotting away in fields for hundreds of years, corn “stover” – a quaint term for the stalks, leaves, cobs and husks discarded during harvest – suddenly seems as popular in the biofuel world as the latest hot contestant is on American Idol.
Large waterfowl are not a good recipe for jet aircraft engines in flight. That much was made vividly clear by the recent “Miracle on the Hudson” in which all 155 people aboard a US Airways flight survived when the pilot made a perfect water landing after geese “fowled” both engines following a takeoff from LaGuardia.
