Sep 15, 2009

Science Scene - Tree Power :o)

University of Washington scientists have discovered a new source of electricity: Trees.

In an experiment that will seem familiar to students of the potato, the scientists stuck one electrode into a bigleaf maple, and another in the ground, and saw that the tree generated a tiny stream of electricity -- a few hundred millivolts.

That's not enough electricity to do much ... but run a circuit and get published in the scientific journal Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Transactions on Nanotechnology.

A few hundred millivolts of electricity isn't enough to do much. Or is it? The scientists built a custom boost converter using nanotechnology that stores input voltages of as little as 20 millivolts (20 thousandths of a volt) and produces 1.1 volts -- enough to run low-power sensors that might monitor environmental conditions, help detect forest fires or gauge the health of trees.

6 comments:

  1. That's pretty cool. Only a few steps away from being able to harvest electrical energy from human beings. I bet people call you "copper top" all time...
    ;)

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  2. How great would it be to see the sensors come to fruition and possibly get a big jump on wildfires.

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  3. That really IS cool! I wondered what that buzz we hear late at night was. ;) I laughed at the "students of the potato" part. A classic!

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  4. More reasons to conserve trees!! They may one day power your lightbulb in the bathroom!!

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  5. If it can be used to help conservation and predict fires... that is enough for me. :-)

    Interesting, thanks Ken.

    be well...

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  6. Not like I need an excuse to save trees, but I'll take any reason to convince other people to save them. Interesting tech development.

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