extracting power from plants?

[Koen1]

Yes I know that one.

But that's not the same thing at all.
You can wrap aluminium foil around anyhting and use it as a crude antenna.
That is not what I mean.

I really mean using the active biochemical processes in the plant
to ultimately produce electrical output...

[triffid]

I did read an article years ago about using bacteria(one celled plants) to make a battery with.No idea what happened to it.triffid

[cyclops]

I have obtained just over 1 volt DC from a (oleander?) spell check). I stuck the positive lead of my digital meter in the main stock of the plant and the negative to a 12'' x1/4'' piece of aluminum stock laying just below the surface. Checked the next day and received similar reading.

[utilitarian]

I am sure it is possible to extract energy from plants in some fashion.  The only question is cost efficiency.  The plant requires nutrients and so forth to keep itself alive.  I have a sneaking suspicion that if you took whatever nutrients the plant would have used during its lifetime, you could extract more energy from those if you did not have to deal with the plant at all, rather than somehow glean tiny amounts of energy the plant gives off, being careful not to kill the plant in the process.

[one]

Koen


Stubblefield  may  have been doing  something related to getting   energy from trees.

About  half way  down on this  page .     http://www.icehouse.net/john34/stubblefield.html

It  talks  about   people  finding  large  wires connected to  tree roots .




gary