Company claims method of harnessing electricity from trees

Seemingly from the same school of scientific thought as the person who brought us the "car that runs on water, man!" is a gentleman named Gordon Wadle who claims to have found a very simple way to draw electricity from trees. After studying lightning which emanates from the ground, Wadle began trying to harness this so-called terrestrial power by driving nails into trees and attaching them to copper water pipes driven into the ground. Although so far the process only produces a voltage that fluctuates between .8 and 1.2-volts (making it completely useless), Wadle managed to convince a company called MagCap to support his research and a law firm to file patents on his behalf. MagCap President Chris Lagadinos is hoping to produce stable 12-volt electricity by the end of 2006, although energy experts seem to be of the mind that this whole thing is a bunch of hogwash. Still, if these guys can somehow pull this off (and without damaging the trees), we'll finally be able to free ourselves from the oppressive oil cartel by simply planting a small oak in our passenger seats.

[Jim H @ Feb 20th 2006 8:43PM]

Take a breath, all you experts out there who 'know' why it can't work. Do you know how a simple battery really works? Or even what magnetism really 'is' (not the textbook catalog of effects you 'learned' in high-school)? I doubt it.
You know what someone else told you, not from your own experiments and observations. Every new and useful concept went through the gamut of 'experts', like you, who 'knew' why it couldn't work. In the end, they didn't know what they didn't know. It's the easiest position for the lazy person to assume.

[Donnie @ Sep 4th 2008 8:21PM]

I believe that the voltage you are reading are from radio waves grounding through the tree. That is why you have no amp reading. Since the ground is naturally negatively charged there will be an off-set in the wave form to be greater on the positive side of the form causing it to appear to be direct current. Try connecting a tuner circuit to bust the power output of only one frequency then rectify it with a diode and listen with an earphone. It is like an old-timey crystal radio set. If this was battery power, the amperage would be considerably higher than the voltage, like with a potato.

~The Doctor~

[Paul @ Jul 3rd 2006 9:17PM]

I first saw this on CNN today and grabbed my volt meter and went out to test this for myself.
I played with 3 trees for a few hours and found it to be most interesting.
Allot of posting about this says that the copper pipe in the ground and the nail it the tree is just a battery. I found that by just pushing the probes from the volt meter into the tree gave me anywhere from .25 to 1 volt. so much for this being just a battery. the first tree was only a few years old (7' tall cherry tree) no voltage-- the second was an 25 years old oak tree .25 to 1 volt depending where the probes were connected. the third was a 20 year old (unknown type) max .25 volts no matter where the probes were placed. I did put some nails in the trunks and found that by connecting the two trees in series the voltage dropped from .8 to .15 volt. I expected it to go up not down.
The oak gave the highest voltage and it seemed that the probe placement matters. with the probes one above the other was the highest, there was no difference as to how far apart the probes were or how high up the or what side of the tree or which limb. 6" apart gave the same voltage as 6 feet apart. If you put a probe 1/2 " into the tree I found that by moving the second probe around the other gave consistent readings .8 with the second probe above or below the first one. with the probe to the left or right the reading was .25 and halfway between these it read .4 volts.
lastly, no detectable amperage, not even .oo1 milliamp.

[eoin @ Jan 11th 2006 5:57PM]

"Although so far the process only produces a current that fluctuates between .8 and 1.2-volts (making it completely useless)"



sorry to burst your bubble but seeing as current is measured in AMPS as opposed to volts (which is voltage naturally) I am somewhat skeptical about this project...

[JavaMoose @ Jan 11th 2006 11:17PM]

It is a battery! He is getting some low voltage (and almost no currant) because of two dis-similar metals (nail and pipe) and an electrolyte (tree sap/ground water). He hammers an Aluminum Nail into a tree, and a Copper Pipe into the ground near the tree - hooks up some wires - and voila, he has a battery. The corroding of his anode (nail) is what is generating the low voltage.



Think it is a coincidence that you get 1.8v out of potato with some coins stuck in it?



Quite the scam.

[cammy @ Jan 11th 2006 11:18PM]

i know a way to extract power from trees! its a miracle of man! you get a match,and you fricken burn em!

[KNsT @ Jan 11th 2006 11:19PM]

Indeed, #1. And even "hoping to produce stable 12-volt electricity" doesn't mean anything since it's power we care about (volts * amps) and something tells me a tree isn't going to be able to supply enough current, and hence power, to do much useful.

[Droford @ Jan 11th 2006 11:20PM]

Lets go stick nails into trees!!



Where's the Lorax when you need him, someone to speak for the trees because the trees have no tongues...?

[CC @ Jan 11th 2006 11:22PM]

I'm trying this tomorrow. I don't expect it to do much, but a nail and some pipe? What kind of current can you get out of it? How does the current and the voltage vary as you put more nails into the tree and pipes in the ground? What about different kinds of trees?



If you can get 1.2 volts, what if you connect 10 trees in a series?



Maybe I should break out the old physics book (wikipedia) to brush up on some basics first.

[CC @ Jan 11th 2006 11:26PM]

Even if it is a battery, maybe the tree heals at a reasonably rate to not have to renew the red-ox reagents (or nail new trees). Ultimately though, it's just absurdly inefficient solar power.

[Ben @ Jan 11th 2006 11:29PM]

Oddly enough the the energy generated by the oxidation of aluminium and copper is 2 volts. And since there is a common ground they wont be reaching 12 volts anytime soon because you can't hook the trees in series. So it takes more energy to make the nail then you will get out of the tree. This makes me pine for tree power.

[John @ Jan 11th 2006 11:30PM]

I could've sworn I saw a method to generate electricity from trees years ago on the movie E.T...



hmm....

[scotius @ Jan 12th 2006 12:42AM]

Or you could burn the tree. That would give you energy. Be sure to defecate in the remains, tree haters!

[Jason @ Jan 12th 2006 3:06AM]

Doesn't driving a nail into a tree, er, kill it?

Bet it makes great energy then. How dumb.

[Cloud @ Jan 12th 2006 3:38AM]

I can believe that they have a way to harness 12v from a tree since everything almost has at least some energy. However I would find this most impractical. It takes over 50 years for a tree to be regrown to an adult (many of them do) and we are already consuming a lot of tree's by paper. I see nothing wrong with this because research shows that too many tree's may result in scorching heat globally.



So what do I think would be more practical? Nucular.. errr I mean Nuclear. Yep! Its safe, its powerful, and it doesn't emmit much pollution.

[Sheldon @ Jan 12th 2006 3:45AM]

@11 (Jason)

Copper nails definately, most other types of nails (unless disproportionally large with respect to the tree trunk) shouldn't affect the tree.

At my parents' house there is a tree that was home to my tree house (some 20+ odd years ago) which is still standing and has zinc coated steel nails (and plain steel ones) but up the drive, one small copper nail killed a leylandii within a year.

[Dogtown @ Jan 12th 2006 3:55AM]

Just a hop, skip and a jump to the Matrix...

[o0adam0o @ Jan 12th 2006 9:42AM]

Thats one spooky looking tree!



Oh yeah, electricity from a tree is kinda dumb....need a whole forest to get decent power...and we all know those weird people that live in the forest dont need or want electricity anyways....

[Guse @ Jan 12th 2006 10:14AM]

energy from trees you say?



cut it down>burn it>use the heat to boil water to create steam>move a turbine connected to a generator with that steam>harness the electricity generated



or use coal...or stick a bunch of nails in the tree with copper pipes connected running into the ground???

[Michael Shada @ Jan 12th 2006 10:24AM]

The human body has a measurable VOLTAGE, generated from receiving all the radio waves transmitted constantly by all Radio and TV transmitters throughout the world. (You can also generate THOUSANDS of volts rubbing your feet on a carpet in the winter, but that�s totally useless unless you want to ZAP someone and make them jump.) Current and Power are the only useful measurements!

Therefore I have a better idea!

Lets "Save the Trees" and stick nails in STUPID PEOPLE. (OR CRIMINALS) This would also be a solution to the Worlds population, as there is an over abundance of stupid people. (And criminals)



(I am NOT referring to the Mentally challenged, many of them have more common since then most of the college graduates I know.)

[ankita vashishtha @ Jan 26th 2006 7:15AM]

As far as I think that if this technique really works and ofcourse it doesn't cause any damage to the trees then it will be usefull.It is because I can understand the discomfort of the people living in the remote places who have no connection of electricity in their houses.And moreover I think that nothing is impossible.Even we are having an enormous amount of energy but we don't recognized it.