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Tapping Trees for Electricity?
dr_agonfly writes "Despite many skeptics, a Massachusetts company is getting investor interest in developing a process to tap electric power from trees. MagCap is looking to boost the current power from just under 2 volts to a more useful 12 volts with investor funding." From the article: "Jim Manwell, director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Renewable Energy Resource Laboratory, questioned the potential of MagCap's plans. 'I'm wildly skeptical,' he said. 'I would need to see proof before I believed it. It strikes me as pretty questionable for a number of reasons.'"
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Afterall, there was the man who did this accidentally!
My work here is dung.
On second thought, I don't think they have electricity in those dens. We'll be living better than ewoks!
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
How about something more useful? Like wattage?
Yes, but they won't be running TCP/IP. They're be running Banyan Vines.
[ducks]
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Now that's what I call Flower Power
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
MagCap is looking to boost the current power from just under 2 volts to a more useful 12 volts
Neither current nor power is measured in volts. If they can't get that right...
You're an immobile computer, remember?
When you hook up two dissimilar electrodes through an electrolyte (which in this case is nicely packaged within a tree and the nearby ground), you get an electrochemical potential. In the case of copper and aluminum as your electrodes, the potential is about two volts.
An easy way to get 12 volts? Connect six tree-cells in series.
My guess is that iss no different from the classic lemon battery, just replacing the galvanized (zinc-coated) nail with an aluminum nail.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I pine for the day that this kind of energy production becomes poplar.
When the nail completely corrodes, the tree will stop "producing electricity" and this company will have moved on to impressing investors with potato clocks.
It doesn't sound too different from the old lemon battery experiment. Sure, he might be able to generate voltage, but the question is...Where are the AMPS? If he has 12V at .005 milliamps, this tree electricity won't be useful to anyone. I hope not too many investors are buying this guy's line...
-R
An easy way to get 12 volts? Connect six tree-cells in series.
.01 milliamps, it's not going to power a whole lot. Unfortunately, the article doesn't mention amps or watts, and without at least 2 of the 3, there's not really much to say about the potential (pun sort of intended).
Precisely what I was going to say, and I'm sure anyone with a basic knowledge of electricity would say the same thing.
Of course, the real problem probably isn't the voltage so much as the wattage. 12 volts is great, but if it's at about
As Gregory Hines said in Running Scared about hitting the third rail on the subway, "it's not the volts that kill you, it's the amps". A taser hits with 50,000-150,000 volts. The reason you don't burn to a crisp when you get hit by one is the amps are so low.
You want to get the voltage to a usable level, but you also need enough amps to run whatever it is you want to run. Frankly, I doubt a tree can produce enough amps, at least without permanently damaging it, for any serious period of time. The act of being a battery will cause a chemical change in the tree which I have to think wouldn't be a healthy one. Since the tree is alive, it will probably repair the damage, but whether it can repair it fast enough to keep from dying is another question.
Needless to say, I have some serious doubts about this "technology".
He has indeed made a battery, and has made a cunning choice in using an aluminium nail because of its electrode potential. It works like this:
:v)
Copper(II) electrode potential: 0.337V
Aluminium electrode potential: -1.662V
(Source http://www.ami.ac.uk/courses/topics/0157_corr/)
String them together in a condictive electrolyte (tree sap & humic acid in the soil will do) to get a cell with 1.999V potential - magically matching his 2.0V
Of course, his aluminium nail is corroding and will need replacing - which is where the energy comes from.
You can't connect the trees in series to increase the voltage because they share a common ground.
Vik
Yes your chemistry sounds about right, as the aluminum corrodes you get a current. However this can't be too good for the plant. Besides the obvious bit about a big spike being nailed in, aluminum ions are toxic to plants. As this thing makes "power" (which in it self is questionable due to the energy cost of refining aluminum) it poisons the tree. I am sure since IAPMB (I am a Plant Molecular Biologist) that the plant can tolerate a certain amount of aluminum, however quite a lot can come from acid soils and the environment. I am doubtful that any real amount of "power" can be harvested this way without killing (or severely stunting) the trees. In short, what the heck is the point, sure you can make a potato battery out of a tree. However like the potato clock, you don't expect the potato to survive long term as a living battery.
... This must be forest BDSM.
Talk about the rape of the forests
From TFA:
Wadle became interested in the concept while studying lightning coming from the ground, "which led him to believe that there's some type of power emanating from earth, which led him to trees," Lagadinos said.
Not that that chain of reasoning inspires any confidence what-so-ever in me, the free power apparently comes from the ground, not the sky...
Unless the "trees" he is talking about only have a couple branches at the top and really long, ropey leaves that seem to go to another "tree" just like it...
Ents could provide Tolkien Ring access...
Get your Unix fortune now!
Ok clarification. They think a single tap can be refined to produce a useful 12 volts at 1 amp via capacitors wired in a circut. Doing some quick and dirty numbers this thing looks real if that number is accurate.
.8 volts run to 3 capacitors in parrallel which are switched to series when discharged generating 2.1 volts. They did not give an amp number on it. But if 12 volts at 1 amp is a reasonable refinement then they would have to be seeing roughly 6 amps from a 2 volt system... and they would need to be seeing roughly 15 amps from a single .8 volt connection.
Aluminum nails are cheap, copper tubing is about a buck a foot, capacitors are pretty cheap. Just rough numbers it looks like you could wire up 1 kw worth of generating power with about 85 connections IF you had a circut capable of delivering 12 volts at one amp from a single tap. Round it to 100 for marigian of error and it looks like it is doable. Larger trees could probably stand 100 nails being driven into them if you spaced them out properly... certainly 25 per tree in a four tree setup.
This is constant power so that would be 24kw-hr's a day which is a good bit more than the average home use. Raw Materials cost would be under 1000 bucks... heck under 500. Catch would be the circut... inverter and a battery bank to deal with peak usuage, and some means of discharging of excess energy.... probably just a ground rod to sink it back into the ground.
But heck... they have already done a circut generating 2 volts. Single Tap generating around
Again they do state explicitly in their faq. (it is a PDF link)
http://www.magcap.com/pdf/faq.pdf
"
Q: Is the voltage potential between an electrode inserted in the tree and one grounded both having different electro-potential characteristics due to electro-chemical reactions e.g. Galvanic batteries?
A: In a Galvanic reaction there is metal to metal contact. Henceforth the word "galvanized". Validation and voltage measurement does not involve metal to metal contact. In addition, a chemical reaction requires a very elevated or very low PH level in order to create this alkaline or acidic condition. Impossibility of this concept is verified by the neutral PH levels of trees. A chemical reaction requires hours if not days to manifest. Voltage per our validation occurs instantaneously upon tree tapping. Consequently, a chemical reaction would result in breakdown of the electrode and thus resulting in loss of voltage. Data collected confirms no electrode breakdown and thus no loss in voltage.
"
They also refute the possibility that the tree is simply an RF receiver due to the fact various sizes of trees used have no effect on the amount of power harnessed. This makes me wonder if you could simply drive a post into the ground and get a similar effect... or some other material with similar conductive properties to wood.
Can read the companies press release here
http://www.magcap.com/pdf/press_release.pdf
Also a PDF. Much more coherent than the linked to article.
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