This spring, the U.S. Forest Service will team up with a company called Voltree Power in an effort to utilize the electricity generated naturally by trees to power a wireless sensor network that would provide early warning against wildfires.
According to Plenty Magazine, The Voltree sensors, which can “predict” wildfires by reading humidity and temperature levels, harvest metabolic energy from the trees themselves and convert it into electrical energy. The use of ambient sources of energy eliminates the need to replace batteries, making the system relatively cheap and positively green.
Tree power only generates a small amount of energy, but when accumulated and stored in a battery or ultracapacitor it is sufficient to keep the wildfire sensors running.
Although there is no need to worry about getting shocked while in the forest, tree power shows that perhaps there is more behind that warm, fuzzy feeling you get after hugging a tree than you thought.
Who knew.
[Via: Plenty]
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