Christina’s Common Sense

If I told you that researchers in Silicon Valley have found bugs that poop crude oil, you’d probably think I was quoting some bad Saturday morning filler on the Sci-Fi Channel. What’s next, you wonder? “Soylent Green is people!” (it is, by the way)?

I’m not quoting bad Saturday morning filler on the Sci-Fi Channel for two reasons. First, anyone up early enough on a Saturday to actually catch it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Second, it’s not bad Saturday morning filler on the Sci-Fi channel. It’s real.

Yep, it is. Some of these researchers have found that if genetically altered bugs eat agricultural waste (ie, wood chips), they excrete oil. Black gold. Texas tea. The same stuff Jed Clampett ran across while shooting at some food.

Of course, this is far from becoming the next big thing. There are all sorts of things that need to be considered, figured, and financed before crude oil in the form of bug poop could become the savior of the oil market. But still, it’s a promising solution—and one devised without one iota of government intervention. Advocates of a free market solution to our energy prices have one more feather in their cap.