We are not beavers. Beavers are not us
Scientists have proposed to get food from wood
The cellulose processing technique is described in an article published in PNAS (You et al., Enzymatic transformation of nonfood biomass to starch). The review of the article leads ScienceNOW (Could Wood Feed the World?).
To obtain starch on an industrial scale, the authors suggest using waste from woodworking industries. According to the results of the study, it will be possible to obtain up to 20 kilograms of starch from 200 kilograms of cellulose, which will provide a person with carbohydrates for 80 days. The cost of such a conversion at current prices will be one million dollars.
At the same time, scientists suggest that further research will simplify and reduce the cost of the procedure, reducing the cost of obtaining starch to 50 cents per person per day. With 100 billion tons of cellulose available annually, the authors of the article consider it possible to obtain up to 4.5 billion tons of starch, which will double the world grain production and provide food for up to 30 percent of the population that will inhabit the planet by 2050.
To produce starch from cellulose, scientists use two sets of enzymes that produce genetically modified bacteria. The first group of enzymes decomposes cellulose into pairs of beta-glucose molecules (cellobioses). Then the second set of enzymes converts the resulting compound into amylose, one of the starch polysaccharides consisting of alpha-glucose chains.
As a result of the process, a sweet starch substance is obtained. Despite the fact that only a third of cellulose is completely processed into amylose, the waste of the conversion is ordinary glucose. According to scientists, it can be used for the manufacture of biofuels.
The proposed method can become an alternative to modern methods of producing biofuels that use corn and sugar cane in its pure form. As Deutsche Welle reported in 2012, with the arrival of such fuels in Europe, a debate began with renewed vigor about how the production of bioethanol affects the global food security situation.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.04.2013