NARRATOR: Our world
is falling apart. Bridges collapse, pipelines
explode, buildings decay. It's an all out war
on rust and rot. This is a massive
generational undertaking, and it will cost billions of
dollars over several decades. NARRATOR: The navy has
taken the battle indoors, while robots take on
pipeline intruders and automakers dream up new
torture tests for vehicles. It takes roughly 20 weeks to
simulate 10 years of corrosion. NARRATOR: But mountains
of decaying garbage produce energy. This is like the epicenter
of world bio-reactor research. NARRATOR: And the termite that
attacks 600,000 homes each year may lead to an
energy promised land. Now, corrosion and decomposition
on "Modern Marvels." [theme music] To chronicle the failing
infrastructure in the United States, every four years the
American Society of Civil Engineers issues a report card. The report card on America's
infrastructure breaks the country's infrastructure
into 15 categories-- ranging from bridges, airports,
water, waste water, sewers-- and gives each of them a grade,
similar to what someone would get in a report card in school
from A to F. ASCE has given the nation's infrastructure
an overall grade of D. NARRATOR: The primary cause for
our failing infrastructure-- corrosion. All of the
categories that were rated by ASCE for
the infrastructure are affected by corrosion. It's lack of maintenance
that shortens the life of infrastructure. NARRATOR: Corrosion costs the US
economy $300 billion each year. That's 4% of our gross
domestic product, nearly half of what we spend on foreign
oil, or roughly $1,000 per American citizen annually. Corrosion's destructive power
can be found everywhere, from rusting railroad trestles
to deteriorating oil pipelines. But what exactly causes
this scourge that eats away at our society? Many different environments
can cause corrosion. A corrosive environment
can be seawater, can be the atmosphere, can be
a chemical solution, an acid. NARRATOR: It's a natural
electrochemical reaction occurring on an atomic
level in most metals. Water conducts
electricity that allows the exchange of electrons
on the surface of the metal. Positively charged
atomic particles called ions flow from the metal
and combine with the oxygen in the water to form an oxide. In the case of iron,
that oxide is rust. Iron is found is
an ore, iron oxide. We put energy into the
ore to produce pure iron. When this iron is exposed
to a corrosive environment, it rusts, releasing
that stored energy and reverting to an oxide state. Different metals corrode
at different rates. Reactive metals, like
iron, oxidize very easily, while more passive metals,
like gold, resist corrosion, earning them the
title noble metals. That's why you'll find
non-oxidizing metals, such as platinum, used
in medical implants. But in a world with an
infrastructure built primarily of iron and steel,
corrosion is rampant, and its impact can
be catastrophic. [tense music] The I-35W collapse was a wake
up call for a lot of the nation in terms of infrastructure. Infrastructure has
a definite lifespan. Corrosion can shorten
the life of a bridge, can shorten the life
of a concrete deck. Right now if you look at the
country, we have roughly 12% of the bridges
structurally deficient and 12% of the bridges
functionally obsolete. NARRATOR: The Bourne
Bridge in Massachusetts is listed by the Federal
Highway Administration as one of the 20 most
structurally deficient in the nation. It's joined by the San Francisco
Oakland Bay Bridge, which serves a quarter of a
million vehicles each day. The Department of Transportation
also gives a poor rating to this aging American landmark. Just repairing the
corroding approach ramps on the Brooklyn Bridge
will cost $275 million. It was estimated in 2005
that it would cost $9.4 billion a year for the next 20 years to
remove all of the deficiencies of our bridges. NARRATOR: America's
bridges may be bad, but our transit system is worse. It's estimated that our
corroding urban rail system requires $14.8 billion annually
just to maintain existing poor conditions. Right now, a lot of the
departments of transportation are having to make a choice
when it comes to either building new structures or maintaining
the existing structures. NARRATOR: Maintaining mass
transit's corrosion prone steel support structures requires
special protective coatings. Zinc primers and
urethane top coatings combine to preserve the
steel for extended periods. But even coatings can't
stop corrosion caused by what many transit authorities
consider their worst enemy-- stray current. It's a phenomenon commonly
found in modern subway systems powered by direct current. In New York subway,
the direct current is delivered via the third rail. There are 600 volts
of direct current at almost unlimited amperage
going through the third rail. If you touch it, you'll
instantly be killed. NARRATOR: The third rail
provides direct current power to the subway train,
then loops back through the system
via the running rails, returning to the substation
completing a cycle. Current from the rails tends to
stray into the soil, attracted to any metal object that
might be buried nearby. Corrosion dramatically
accelerates at the point where current
leaves the buried metal object. Older transit systems are
most susceptible to stray current corrosion, due
to general deterioration and poor insulation. New York City's 100-year-old
mass transit authority ranks corrosion as its
number one maintenance issue. But according to the American
Society of Civil Engineers, we have far bigger corrosion
problems to worry about. The worst areas with
a grade of D minus are drinking water, waste water. The Environmental
Protection Agency estimates that
nearly $1 trillion is needed in critical
drinking water and waste water investments over
the next 20 years. The very nature of
waste water is corrosive. It breaks down, and that
increases the acid content in waste water. What that means is it
essentially eats away at the pipe, weakening it. It becomes much more subject to
leaks and structural breakdown, which is sewer pipe collapsing. NARRATOR: Collapsed
sewer pipes mean spills. And spills mean fines from
the Environmental Protection Agency. Detroit, Atlanta,
and Washington, DC have seen their fair share. But the worst offender is
San Diego with $6.2 million in EPA penalties
between 2005 and 2008. Some of these structures
are from the early part of the last century,
and they're wearing out. Here in the city of St. Louis,
we have the fourth largest sewer system in the United
States, parts of which date back to the 1850s, before even
Abraham Lincoln was president. We have wooden sewers,
actually, downtown. And those wooden sewers are
amongst the first sewers that were built in the 1850s,
but it's the infrastructure that we have today. NARRATOR: The trillion dollar
price tag on our aging water and sewer systems may be reduced
by inventive new technologies, like those used to
overhaul St. Louis's 10,000 miles of underground pipe. To save time and money, the
city is rebuilding its sewers from the inside out. The conventional way would be
to come out here with a backhoe and dig up the street
and put in a new pipe. But that's very expensive,
very time consuming. In lieu of that, we have
cured in place pipe. That is, we're working
with polyester resin. That's the same thing that
boats are made out of. What we're essentially doing is
using the old pipe as a form. And we're building a
new pipe inside that without digging up the street. We're going to have
this done in one day. NARRATOR: Trenchless
repair systems, developed by in situ form technologies,
are rapidly overtaking traditional dig and replace
methods of pipe restoration. It starts with an inspection
by an iBot that doesn't mind crawling through sewers. That allows us to get
a video of the pipeline before and after
we install a liner. It works basically
on its own power. You run this through
the line initially to make sure it's clean,
so when we drag our liner through there's not going to
be any bumps or anything that's real ugly in there. It feeds basically
into our TV truck, and I can see everything
on a television monitor without actually having
to go into the line. NARRATOR: The robots aren't
afraid of tight places or unexpected visitors. Every now and again, you
get to see some crazy stuff. NARRATOR: In trenchless
technology, instead of unearthing the corroded
pipe, a resin saturated, coated felt tubing
is inserted into it. Compressed air inflates
the tube, extending it the length of the pipe. Installers then circulate
steam through the tubing, curing the resin and
forming a tight fitting pipe within the pipe. This is a thermal
set, heat set. So when we raise
the temperature-- in this case to 130
degrees Fahrenheit-- it's going to exotherm. In other words, it's going
to go from liquid to solid. It's a chemical reaction. It's kind of like when people
buy an epoxy at the store. And you've got two parts,
and you mix them together. There's heat generated
there, and that goes from liquid to solid. The pipe is going to be solid
just like this pipe in my hand. This is an eight inch. Here's the felt. This
has a resin in it. Install it in the pipe,
and then when we finish it'll be a structural pipe. NARRATOR: The crew relies on
the iBot to finish the job. By attaching a movable drill
to the front of the iBot, a technician can reopen
access to individual homes, called service laterals,
that have been sealed by the liner within the pipe. Basically, what I do is
when I approach a service, I find the dimple where
the service is at. So this is what
we're looking for. That's how I know what
I've got to cut out. I get my bit up to the
service, and I will cut a hole in the middle of it. Generally, it takes about
five minutes to cut a service. We can line an entire street and
reinstate everybody's laterals to their houses and have their
water flowing in one day. What this will allow us
to do is restore this line, maintain service
to these customers without tearing up
several blocks of street and causing a major
inconvenience for everybody that lives in this neighborhood. NARRATOR: Trenchless
sewer replacement costs up to 50% less than
traditional methods. It works equally well
with drinking water pipes, but not every city is as
proactive as St. Louis in restoring their corroding
sewer and water delivery systems. Many communities are faced
with a countdown of sorts as to which of
their infrastructure is going to fail most
rapidly and maybe even most dramatically. And while this
underground assets tend to not be as spectacular
as a bridge failing or a road failing or even
a large sinkhole, they can contribute mightily
to environmental degradation with sewer leaks and even
quality of living issues. NARRATOR: If the mix of
metal and water in America's infrastructure is a
recipe for corrosion, what happens when you
add salt to the equation? For the US Navy, it's
a recipe for disaster, unless you've got the
most advanced research in the world on your side. the largest navy in the world. More than 280 ships
and 3,700 aircraft currently patrol seas from the
Far East to the Mediterranean. But if you're looking for the
largest fleet in the Pacific Ocean, you'll need to go
30 miles northeast of San Francisco to the backwater
port of Suisun Bay. Most of these vessels are past
their prime, mothballed rust buckets that will
never see action again. Over 70 derelict ships
moor in the bay-- car ships, missile
cruisers, and tankers, most between 400 and
700 feet in length. These relics date from
as far back as the 1940s and include among their ranks
the distinguished battleship USS Iowa, launched in 1943. Officially, the Navy
considers them reserve ships. Unofficially, they're
known as the ghost fleet. The only battle these
veteran warriors fight today is one against corrosion. We have to deal with
the water and the salt in the water coming
up and corroding the inside of the hull. You don't want holes in
the hull of the ship. You don't want to take
water on the vessel. NARRATOR: As they
await disposal, the rusting hulks have shed
over 20 tons of toxic metals into the bay, Including
chromium, lead, and mercury. But corrosion isn't just a
problem for the aging ghost fleet. It's a costly burden for
the entire US military. Costs of corrosion,
Department of Defense wide, has been estimated to be
somewhere between $10 and $20 billion per year. NARRATOR: That's
roughly the equivalent of what Canada spends annually
on its entire defense program. Of that, the Navy's
cost of corrosion for ships and submarines
alone, not including aviation, is about $2.4
billion every year. That represents on the
order of 20% to 25% of our maintenance costs
yearly, as well as sailors spend a lot of time performing
corrosion prevention. It's a never ending task of
having the crew trying to fight this corrosion, and
scaling and chipping and painting and repainting. Seems like you
just painted there, and now you have to paint again. But that's just what
you have to do to keep the ship from rusting away. NARRATOR: The culprit
that accelerates corrosion aboard ship is saltwater. Saltwater is more
corrosive than fresh water, and it acts as a conduit
for the electrons to flow from one area of
the ship to the other. And the areas of the ship
that the electrons are leaving the iron creates rust areas. NARRATOR: Shielding a ship's
metal surface with sealants and paint is the first line
of defense against saltwater. The Navy also uses another
extremely efficient means of combating corrosion-- credit Englishman Sir
Humphrey Davy for that method. He attached a chunk of iron
to the hull of a copper clad British Naval ship. It's called cathodic protection,
and he introduced it in 1824. The iron with its
greater tendency to oxidize reduced
corrosion in the copper. Cathodic protection works
because water and the ship's metal hull in contact with
the water act like a battery. The saltwater is a conductor
of electric current. The ship's hull
becomes a cathode with current flowing in. The corrosive, or sacrificial,
metal becomes an anode, releasing current. The flow of currents from
the anode to the cathode releases ions from the anode,
causing it to corrode instead of the ship's hull. This is a 20-pound zinc anode
used on the submerged hulls of ships. This is a similar piece
of zinc after one year as a sacrificial anode. Today, the Navy uses an
even more effective form of cathodic protection
called impressed current. This is our cathodic
protection device. It applies a voltage to
the hull of the vessel. It's helping to protect the
hull of the ship from corrosion. It has six anodes underneath
the waterline that 0.85 volts is applied to. What the system is doing
is putting a charge on the entire hull,
so the entire hull has an equal
potential throughout. NARRATOR: The 0.85
voltage is so low that it's undetectable
to the touch, but still enough to
prevent electrons from leaving one
area of the hull and traveling to another,
causing corrosion. Still, you can only
slow corrosion. You can't stop it. The elements in
the environment are always trying to take
the ship back to nature, and it's our job to try and
keep nature from doing that. NARRATOR: In its endless
war against corrosion, the US Navy comes here. This is the Naval research
laboratories marine corrosion facility. We're on the Naval air
station in Key West, Florida. This is where we will test run
many of our new technologies and new systems for
corrosion mitigation in the marine environment. NARRATOR: The LAMPS cathodic
protection design facility is at the cutting edge
of corrosion research. The tank that we're looking at
here is a 30-foot diameter tank that's 10 feet deep and holds
about 55,000 gallons of water. We are looking at a scale model
of the Zumwalt class destroyer. This is the Navy's
new destroyer. And this is a fiberglass
replica of the hull that's been laid out for cathodic
protection design. NARRATOR: The fiberglass hull
is studded with steel chips to replicate paint damage. The water in the
tank is agitated to simulate a ship's motion. The model gives us a very cost
effective method of doing this. We don't have to work
with the real ship, and we can change component
locations in real time. NARRATOR: The model is scanned
to determine the best placement of cathodic protection
on the hull-- information that will be
used in the construction of the actual ship. This is the only facility
of its kind in the world. We design for both
the US Navy and have done work for some
commercial sector and also other
navies of the world. NARRATOR: Also one of a kind
is the facility's full scale ballast simulation tank,
where researchers can study new preservation methods. Ballast tanks are our
number one corrosion issue in the Navy, mainly
because we store seawater. And we store seawater
in ballast tanks to adjust ship trim and
list, as well as buoyancy. Because of the fact that there's
such a large corrosion problem, we invest the majority
of our R&D resources into new coating systems,
monitoring technologies, and inspection methods. NARRATOR: One of those
monitoring systems is a robotic camera that
inspects and quantifies ballast tank corrosion. We use it to actually take
still imagery of the tank and actually analyze
the percent damage to the coating within the tank. It's a useful device because
it allows us to remotely assess the state of preservation
without having to enter the tank, which is
important for safety and cost reasons. NARRATOR: To reduce time spent
painting ballast tanks, the lab experiments with long
lasting fast curing coatings. Here, we have a
rapid cure technology that consists of a base
component and a catalyst component. When I mix these two components
together, essentially what's going to occur is
an exothermic reaction. As the exothermic
reaction progresses, the process generates
a great deal of heat. It's gonna get as hot as
275 degrees Fahrenheit. Now what has occurred here
is we've made a liquid to a solid in less than two
seconds as the reaction took place. NARRATOR: With
rapid cure coatings, time spent painting
a ballast tank could be reduced from 200
to less than 40 hours. The time sailors spend in
corrosion prevention also has a surprising hidden cost. We recruit sailors to drive
highly sophisticated war machines. When they get to
the deck plate, they find out that they're spending
quite a bit of time doing corrosion prevention. The fact that these sailors are
spending so much time chipping and painting has actually
impacted our retention rates. NARRATOR: This experimental
heat induction tool might be just the thing to
keep sailors from jumping ship. This is a tool that generates
an electromagnetic field and causes the
substrate to heat up, resulting in the coating
actually popping off or losing adhesion
from the surface. So it's very easy to just
chip the paint right off. NARRATOR: Reducing
maintenance time is critical for today's Navy. As our fleet has gotten
smaller over the years, the operational tempo of each
of our ships has gotten greater, and that stresses the ships
even to a greater degree. Gives us less time
to do maintenance. All of these things lead
to problems with respect to corrosion control and the
availability of our fleet to perform its primary function. NARRATOR: Despite
the latest research, saltwater will remain one of
the US Navy's worst enemies for years to come. Unfortunately, the
corrosive effect of salt doesn't stop at the shore. Thanks to the damage caused
by rock salt on our roads, these robots are
assured job security. Automotive corrosion-- it
costs America over $23 billion each year, or $115 for
each driver on the road. Main cause-- rock salt.
The 16 million tons of it applied to US roadways each
winter do much more than just melt snow. Melting fresh water with
salt creates saltwater and massive corrosion problems. It's very effective from
a de-icing perspective. Problem is, it has damaging
effects on automobiles and the infrastructure. Rock salt is the
primary contributor to corrosion that we
see in under body areas and on the sides of the vehicle. It breaks down the
inner metal surface and causes rust at the prone
areas, such as door seams, headlight bezels, trunk bezels,
rocker panels, wheel wells. NARRATOR: Metallic road
features like bridges also corrode faster due to rock
salt used for de-icing. Rock salt isn't the only
means of de-icing roads. Calcium magnesium acetate is a
far less corrosive, yet equally effective, alternative. But it's 30 times more
expensive, making rock salt the de-icer of choice. American automakers battle
rock salt's corrosive effects at places like
the General Motors proving ground in
Milford, Michigan. The GM proving ground
goes back to 1924. It's about 4,000 acres. There's about 120 laned
miles of test roads. About 4,000 people
work at the facility. And a lot of different test
labs and vehicle development validation durability
occurs at that site. And the testing process takes
us anywhere from 12 months to 20 months to get a
full complete evaluation of the vehicle. NARRATOR: To assess
resistance to corrosion, the research team subjects
cars to serious abuse. This is the grit
trough facility. This is used to create under
body splash for our vehicles undergoing corrosion tests. It applies a mixture of grit
and different contaminants to the undercarriage
of the vehicle and the engine compartment
of the vehicle. There's a mixture of sand,
crushed stone, cinders, various different elements. And basically, we're getting
the same contaminants on the vehicles on test as
what we see in the real world. NARRATOR: Prior to the
1950s, corrosive rock salt wasn't a concern for car owners. Vehicles produced
in 1920s to the 1930s were built on a
much sturdier frame. Thicker metals were being used. Thicker body panels
were being used. Less road salt was being
applied in the 30s itself. In the late 50s, the vehicles
lightened up from heavy steel to light steel to improve
performance of the vehicle. Those vehicles corroded
out much faster. Most consumers in
the 50s and 60s only kept the car four to
five years, and it was gone. NARRATOR: Curt Ziebart, a German
auto mechanic who immigrated to Detroit, Michigan in 1951,
saw rust as an opportunity. He was amazed at
the amount of rust on vehicles throughout
the United States. He wanted to find a solution to
that, and that solution for him was rust proofing. NARRATOR: Ziebart applied
a corrosion resistant, oil based spray to
the undercarriage and interior panels of cars,
where trapped moisture causes rust. By the 1970s,
Ziebart rust proofing hit hundreds of franchises,
Twilight Zone's Rod Serling as their spokesman
and a catchy slogan. Ziebart-- it's us or rust. NARRATOR: The 1970s also
saw American car makers come under fire from
the US government. A federal economic report
cited the US auto industry as the largest corrosion
problem by cost in America. Car makers responded by
introducing galvanized steel in vehicle construction. In galvanizing, steel
receives a thin coating of zinc applied either by
hot dip or electroplating technology. The zinc oxidizes and forms a
barrier to protect the steel. But if the coating is
damaged, the zinc also acts as a sacrificial anode. It corrodes and leaves the
exposed steel rust free. You'll also find galvanized
pipes, corrugated sheet metals, nuts, bolts, and nails. But galvanizing alone wasn't
enough to satisfy demands to control automotive corrosion. In '79, the Canadian
government mandated that a three year warranty be
provided to Canadian consumers on corrosion for all vehicles
made by General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and American
Motor Corporation. That, in turn, required
the United States to provide the same warranty
on a competitive nature to its consumers who were
purchasing the same vehicles. NARRATOR: Things have only
gotten better since then. Today, a consumer will keep
a car on average 9.3 years, far outlast the automotive
manufacturing warranties which are seven years,
100,000 miles currently. NARRATOR: American cars owe
their extended lifetimes to deep corrosion research,
like that done at GM's salt mist facility. This facility is designed
to expose the exterior of the vehicle to salt mist
that's consistent with what a vehicle would get when
it's exposed to coastal areas and also what a vehicle
would get as it's trailing another vehicle on
a salt covered road. A test vehicle is exposed to
this facility and this test input numerous times
during the corrosion test. NARRATOR: Vehicles will
undergo 100 repeated cycles of each test over 20 weeks
to approximate 10 years of corrosion. Dedicated gravel road facility
is designed to produce chipping damage to the lower
body vehicle areas and under body vehicle areas. The facility itself is
designed with a cover over it so that we can have consistent
testing, whether we're in rain or freezing conditions. The dedicated gravel
road is 1,000 foot long, and we use the size
and shape of stone that is optimized to create
the most significant damage in terms of chipping
on the vehicles. NARRATOR: After more
splashing, jostling, and general mistreatment, the
cars are ready to rust and rust fast. We bring that vehicle
back to the building, and we put it in the
corrosion chambers. These chambers are maintained at
120 degrees Fahrenheit and 100% relative humidity, which is
a very corrosive and severe condition for the vehicles. These chambers are used to
both accelerate the corrosion process in general and to also
allow us to test both summer and winter and maintain
a consistent corrosion rate for our test. Once we bake the vehicle
in these chambers, we have an ability to
look at the vehicle and verify that the performance
of all of those components and materials working
together ultimately meet our customer requirements. NARRATOR: They verify that
by literally ripping the car apart. The tear down process involves
completely disassembling the vehicle-- removing all of the interior
trim, the steering wheel, the seats-- and completely getting
the body ready so that we can disassemble the
body, spot weld by spot weld. This process will take
a matter of several days to get the body ready. So all the components
are laid out on the table so that the various design
engineers have an opportunity to come out, look
at their components, pick them up, hold them in
their hand, turn them around. And as we find issues,
we change the design, change the material,
or change the process to correct that
issue before it gets into the hands of the customer. NARRATOR: The
challenge is to build cars that stand up to
corrosion but can also be made economically. I can build a vehicle
that's corrosion resistant and corrosion proof,
but the average customer could never afford the vehicle. So you've got to balance
cost as well as performance and durability. NARRATOR: In a world of
decay, nothing lasts forever-- not even plastics, which have a
lifespan measured in centuries. And if you're wondering
where plastics go to die, it's the middle of
the Pacific Ocean. And that is a big problem. Plastic-- it's everywhere. The world produces 110
million tons of it each year, and only 1% of that is recycled. What happens to the rest
of our discarded plastic? Unlike metals,
plastics don't corrode. They don't even rot. But they do break down
when exposed to sunlight, through a process known
as photo degradation. Ultraviolet radiation
and sunlight causes chemical compounds
called polymers to cross link. This makes the plastic brittle,
allowing it to break down into smaller and smaller pieces. You can think of it in terms
of the vinyl top on a car or the vinyl dashboard in a car. You don't put your
Armor All on it and resist the UV degradation. It becomes embrittled at
cross links, and it cracks. NARRATOR: Captain Charles
Moore understands plastic. For over a decade, he studied it
as it collects in an area known as the North Pacific Gyre. That's where plastics go to die. It's easily 10 million
square miles in extent and the size of the
continent of Africa. The North Pacific
Subtropical Gyre is a circular current that's
caused by a high pressure system. It circulates in a
clockwise direction and pushes down near the center
and creates a lower sea level. So you get this kind of a toilet
bowl effect of currents that pull debris from the
Pacific Rim and bring it into the central part
of the North Pacific. Anything that floats will
make it into the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre--
everything from refrigerators to toothbrushes. Predominantly, what
we see out there is broken down bits
of consumer plastics that are now outweighing, and
in some cases even outnumbering, the natural food out there. NARRATOR: Plastics can take
up to five years to journey from North America to the Gyre,
breaking down through photo degradation during their journey
to create a plastic soup. Captain Moore and his crew
aboard the research vessel Al Guido trawl the Gyre's surface
with a one third millimeter mesh net to gather
samples for their study. Document it. This is the first one
of a repeat survey. We would expect our
trawls to be something in the order of 100 times
as bad as they were in 1999. This appears to be
what we're finding. NARRATOR: The problem is more
than just a scenic blight on this remote area of ocean. Plastic is making its
way into the food chain. Millions of seabirds,
marine mammals, and fish die each year by ingesting
or becoming ensnared in plastic refuse. The chemicals that
are transmitted up the food chain to fish that
we consume is a concern. It's a concern for
our own health. NARRATOR: Research suggests
that toxins found in fish that consume plastics can be
linked to cancer, liver damage, and
reproductive problems in humans who eat tainted fish. This stuff got a lifetime
on the order of centuries, and no one alive today
or their children or their children's
children will be in an ocean free from this pollution. We've got to stop putting it in. NARRATOR: Unlike plastics
that slowly photo degrade, organic matter goes through
a more rapid breakdown. It's called decomposition. Decomposition is
the process by which things like earthworms,
bacteria, and fungi help to break down the recently
dead organic matter from plants and animals, recycle that
material so that the nutrients can be used again, and also in
that process releasing carbon dioxide. NARRATOR: Plants grow when
they take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
combine that with water to make glucose that feeds them. But once plants
die, microorganisms begin to attack, releasing
the nutrients stored within. New plants use those
nutrients for growth. The carbon that was
stored in the dead plants is released into the
atmosphere to be used again. Decomposition may be
essential in nature, but it has a high
cost for civilization. 25% of the world's harvested
produce is lost to spoilage. Additionally, microbial
decomposition of food results in the release of
toxins, which are harmful when consumed. Decomposition also
hits us where we live. Buildings fall
victim to wood rot, the attack of fungi
on wooden timbers, resulting in $17 billion of
structural damage annually. But ironically, in
America's garbage dumps-- one place where we'd expect
to see decomposition occur-- it's being impeded. In a typical landfill, waste
is brought in, it's covered. Liquid is diverted
from that landfill. So it's basically a dry
tomb, like a mummy's tomb. NARRATOR: The layers of Earth
that cap conventional landfills create an airtight seal,
dramatically slowing the decay of refuse trapped inside. It's like the
Dead Sea Scrolls. You can dig that stuff up
later, and it's still there. So where the
science has gone now is to bio-reactor landfills. NARRATOR: Bio-reactors convert
solid waste into usable energy in the form of methane gas,
by introducing fluids that accelerate decomposition. By constantly controlling
the flow of the liquid into the landfill, we're trying
to achieve a 30% moisture content in the waste. We think at 30%, that's when
decomposition will start to be accelerated. NARRATOR: The most advanced
bio-reactor on the planet is outside Winter
Haven, Florida. This is like the epicenter
of world bio-reactor landfill research is right
here in Polk County. This is a large landfill. This is 3,000 tons a day of
garbage coming in the door. That's a lot of garbage. About 40% of that
garbage is putrescible. It's either paper or
food waste or yard waste. And so the little anaerobic
bacteria-- anaerobic means they don't have
any oxygen in there. They eat that stuff, and they
produce lots of methane-- bio-gas. NARRATOR: Capturing that gas
is critical to a bio-reactor's construction. Thick plastic sheeting lines the
bottom of the bio-reactor cell. Irrigation pipes set atop
20-foot layers of solid waste pile up over the base. A giant pyramid of waste
builds with each tier added. Waste fluid known
as leeching collects in the bottom of the pile and
is pumped to holding tanks. The leech-ade is then pumped
through the irrigation pipes into the waste,
speeding decomposition. Wells sunk deep into
the pile tap methane gas produced by bacteria
feeding on the garbage. The bio-reactor is covered with
thick plastic sheeting that prevents methane
gas from escaping and keeps unwanted
rain water out. What you see on the side
slopes here is a 16-inch HDPE pipe. And what it does is takes the
methane from the landfill gas extraction wells,
and channels it over to the waste energy facility
just north of the property. NARRATOR: Over 500 homes are
powered by methane derived from this landfill. That may not seem like much,
but the US Department of Energy estimates that if all
landfills were bio-reactors, they could supply the
electrical needs of over three million homes. But accelerated decomposition
also has another benefit-- reducing the size of the
solid waste by 10% to 30% Our goal is to increase the
decomposition to the extent that we can actually put
more garbage in the cell while we're still using
it, so we don't have to build as many landfills. I think the dry tomb
concept is going away, and most people realize
that long term, getting the waste wet and getting it
to decompose is the way to go. And bio-reactors are
just going to become everyday common practice. NARRATOR: We may also be seeing
more of these little guys that can effectively recycle many
hard to digest materials. They're every homeowner's
worst nightmare, but they just might
help us save our planet. decomp. They cause hundreds of
millions of dollars in damage to America's wooden
structures every year. Such destructive power
makes termites many a homeowner's worst nightmare. They're the primary
target of a $7 billion pest control industry. But these creatures
are not only pests-- far from it. They do an alarming amount of
damage to buildings every year. But there are 2,600 species
of termite, at least on Earth, and only a few of them
are known to be pests. Termites play a
very important role in the turnover of high energy
dead material and distributing that throughout a food
chain or food web. NARRATOR: Termites physically
break down plant matter into smaller pieces so
that bacteria and fungi may chemically decompose
the material. I love termites. I've been interested in
studying termites now for almost 20 years. NARRATOR: Dr. Jared
Leadbetter's research focuses on the termites'
ability to turn a seemingly indigestible substance like
wood into a viable food. And his little
friends may just be the key to world
changing advances in the field of energy. Termites are not able to
digest wood by themselves. There is a role of the
microorganisms that live in the hind gut, in
the degradation of wood, into some compounds
which then can be used by the termite as a nutrient. In the gut of one termite,
you may find as many as 200 or more species of bacteria
and protozoa and organisms that you'll find
nowhere else in nature. So now, we'll take this slide
of this termite microbial suspension, and we'll get
a very fundamental look at the microbes underneath
the light microscope. And it is this amazing menagerie
of wild shaped organisms, very dynamically swimming
around and cavorting and turning and tossing. And so visually,
very striking place. And I like to say that working
on termite gut microbes is like working in a
miniature Alice in Wonderland. It's almost psychedelic. NARRATOR: These microbes
may make cellulosic ethanol possible. That's the bio-fuel
game changer. Science has a very
good understanding of taking a simple
sugar, like table sugar, and turning that into
ethanol using yeasts. We know how to do that. But we have a very poor command
of how we might change wood into anything. Is there any way to come up
with a process to convert grass clippings or rice holes or wood
chips into a transportation fuel like ethanol? NARRATOR: Isolating the
microbes that break down wood is step one. By understanding that, that
should give us some foundation on how we might engineer new
systems, not having termites in a laboratory but actually
new systems ultimately maybe enlarged fermenters, like
you'd have at Miller Brewing or Budweiser Brewing, to
do this on a massive scale under very, very different
operating conditions. NARRATOR: Poor cellulose
could supply up to 100 billion gallons of fuel each
year, replacing over two billion barrels of imported
oil, while slashing greenhouse gas emissions. But the termite
harbors more treasures. Its microbial community may
also offer efficient new ways of producing hydrogen gas. Some of the microbes are
able to convert cellulose and other components
of wood into hydrogen, do so at very high rates, and
are able to allow hydrogen to accumulate in very
high concentrations. NARRATOR: One termite can
convert a single piece of paper into two liters of hydrogen gas,
making termites one of the most efficient bio-reactors
on the planet. There are many
different angles to studying the termite
gut microbiology, many different things
that it can tell us-- each in their own
right very interesting. NARRATOR: For now, the termite
gut provides a safe haven for that microbial menagerie. Thanks to this lowly
insect, we just might be able to decompose our
way to a brighter tomorrow.
