Electrical engineers, usually skilled at producing electricity from the wind, running water, fissionable materials, and the sun, have figured out a new way to draw electrical energy out of nature: stick electrodes in trees. Tests at UW showed their local trees have a potential of a couple tenths of a volt, which is a pretty respectable amount of energy for sensors and simple electronics. The article makes a point of noting that this isn't the same as a potato clock: that uses the potato as a dialectric to move electrons between dissimilar metals, it doesn't generate any electricity. These trees are actually generating the electricity on their own through an unknown process.
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