Green Power: The Quest to Harness Energy From Leaves

"Green Power: The Quest to Harness Energy From Leaves" 

The article "Green Power: The Quest to Harness Energy From Leaves" by Rebecca Heilweil addresses the concern of natural energy.




This article starts by giving the readers a brief history of why plants came into consideration for natural energy. There was a need and scientist found the usefulness of leaves. In the search, "researchers at the Center for Micro-BioRobotics at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, in Italy" performed an experiment with leaves of plants and found that they are able to convert wind energy into 150 volts of electricity. That is enough to light up 100 small LEDs.

Even though this experiment was performed inside a lab, the Center's goal is to have plants produce energy for everything outside of their labs. This required time and new ideas and in October, Mazzolai and her team published a paper describing the success they had on their experiment using leaves. In this experiment it was "said they tested about 10 plant species. Some were more effective than others at generating power, but theoretically, the method could be applied to almost any land plant."

Then "researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics published a paper describing how they had powered LEDs and a watch with a similar wind-driven method, using natural and artificial leaves."

Now scientists search for the correct technology that can apply leave-power to any tools. Even though "the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Stanford University published research in July 2017 describing a tubular, vine-like robot that moves by extending itself at the tip, allowing it to 'grow' through small crevices," the search for the appropriate technology is still on.



I found this article interesting because it was concerning a new type of energy that will eventually be in everyone's tools. Also, there will be a need to properly introduce this new energy to the public and that is where marketing comes into play. Lastly, I believe with the right technology, "leave-power" will be able to compete with the current energy providers.

Submitted by: Gorman Aguilar
Title of Article: Green Power: The Quest to Harness Energy From Leaves
Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/green-power-the-quest-to-harness-energy-from-leaves-11551366000?mod=foesummaries  
Publish Time: Feb. 28, 2019