Pop quiz: what are the qualities required to create a strong source of renewable energy? Answer: plentiful electricity, little-to-no carbon footprint, and reliable availability. So what’s environmentally friendly, plentiful, and constantly generating power? The answer might surprise you: it’s plants.
According to a study out of the Italian Institute of Technology, living plants passively generate an electrical current of at least 150 volts for every leaf. Again, that’s one leaf, and that’s enough juice to light 100 LED light bulbs. If that much power is contained in one leaf, it’s anyone’s guess how much power could be produced by an entire forest.
Surprisingly, the energy generation is a result of mechanical forces exerting upon the leaf. A brief gust of wind generates contact electricity on the leaf’s surface, which is transmitted to the plant’s stem. Just stick an outlet down there, boom, instant green battery.
The research team took things a step forward by creating a special “hybrid tree,” a plant with both normal, organic leaves and special artificial leaves. When the tree detects wind, the artificial leaves bend and rub the surface of the normal leaves, generating even more electricity on top of the electricity from the wind.
Barbara Mazzolai, a member of the team, will be coordinating a new project next year entitled “Growbot.” Utilizing this first study as a base, Mazzolai seeks to create biomechanical plant “robots” that would generate their own power. This could be the cusp of the renewable energy boom we’ve all been waiting for.
