Supertree
“Poems are made by fools like me.
But only God can make a tree.”
And, perhaps, some clever gene-bending scientists.
Lignin is the magic ingredient that makes wood rigid. Lots of lignin is needed if that wood is to become a 2x4 that will support your roof. No lignin at all is great if you are making paper. Getting lignin out of natural wood is energy-intensive. The CO2 produced annually by US pulp paper plants is equivalent to the output of eight coal-fired power generators.
By the way, the toilet paper industry especially needs effective lignin-elimination technology. I have bitter memories of the toilet paper included with the Army’s C Rations. It had embedded wood slivers. Was the t.p.intended to “toughen us up” or did the Army save money by not buying Charmin?
Gene editing gave us COVID vaccines. This week, it gave us Supertrees. Cut and paste the right genes and you get half the lignin (just enough to keep the growing tree erect) and nearly twice the cellulose (which eventually become paper and other stuff). That other stuff includes cigarette filters. I once toured the Eastman Chemical plant in Kingsport, TN, birthplace of 80% of America’s cigarette filters. That was a really big business in the early ’70s when everyone smoked. Enormous vats of boiling wood pulp with stirrers scraping off the lignin scum were everywhere. I got free sample ciggies so the trip was worthwhile.
Those European Union killjoys had to dampen the fun. They strictly limit gene-edited farm animals. What if the Superpigs get loose and mate with our native wild boars? A 500 pound wild animal with tusks is the stuff of nightmares! Now they take a dim view of Supertrees. What if the beautiful plane trees that Napoleon planted along our byways all flop to the ground after cross-pollinating with those lignin-reduced American imports?
Trees are nondiscriminatory pollinators. Every spring, my beloved Prius is coated with tree pollen even though it is kept in the garage. With the advent of Supertrees, will my Prius’s rigidity be compromised? Yet another reason to move to Europe even if Trump is not elected.
By Ed Dufton
