Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
13 September 2009
21:0628899#1
Could this be the way forward:Shoving electrodes into tree trunks to harvest electricity may sound like the stuff of dreams, but the idea is increasingly attracting interest. If we can make it work, forests could power their own sensor networks to monitor the health of the ecosystem or provide early warning of forest fires.
Children the world over who have tried the potato battery experiment know that plant material can be a source of electricity. In this case, the energy comes from reduction and oxidation reactions eating into the electrodes, which are made of two different metals - usually copper and zinc.
The same effect was thought to lie behind claims that connecting electrodes driven into a tree trunk and the ground nearby can provide a current. But last year Andreas Mershin's team at MIT showed that using electrodes made of the same metal also gives a current, meaning another effect must be at work. Mershin thinks the electricity derives from a difference in pH between the tree and the soil, a chemical imbalance maintained by the tree's metabolic processes.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
17 September 2009
11:2029048#2
Wow!! fascinating but perhaps far fetched. But the even worse prospect ....would the populace reject it happening in a tree near them. The dismal outlook most people have is to blame - they want electricity bigtime but dont want any device that produces it near them. We are a nation of dim and dismal NIMBYS.
people are against Coal Fire Power Stations, people are against Nuclear Power Stations, people are aginst the relatively harmless and fairly attractive Wind Turbines, people are against...well everything. The lights will be going out on Tooting Broadway any day now !
