Comments on: Energy Harvesting ‘Piezo-tree’ Concept

By: trived

trived — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:59:37 +0000

What part is made of piezo material? and which part of the leaf must be made of plastic??

By: Boneheaded1

Boneheaded1 — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:36:31 +0000

Just a bunch of engineers tooling around trying to find some backing for an interesting but highly inefficient power generation method. This is too expensive for the output. The cost per kilowatt would be HUGE. Research into renewable/green energy is always welcome, but let’s not dilute the pool of available investment dollars for something like this.

A real tree is WAY more green and more aesthetic. It cleans the CO2 from the air and the leaves could be placed in a digester to make methane. Sure, over the course of the year a piezo tree MIGHT generate more power than the digested leaves of a real tree but then what about the carbon capture aspect? Not too mention the power/waste cost to build/transport the things in the first place.

Waste of resource to build these things.

By: A Nonymous

A Nonymous — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:40:26 +0000

By what the article says, starting with 100 picowatts, then the plastic refinement making it a hundred times more powerful (10000 picowatts), and then a structural refinement adding an “order of magnitude” (100000 picowatts) – you’re left with what equates to 0.001 of a milliwatt per leaf? Doesn’t seem like much? If that is true, you’d need a thousand leaves just to generate one milliwatt! You could get the equivalent of a hundred piezo trees each with a thousand leaves, by instead using a single solar panel… or have I missed something?

By: Merijn Rutgers

Merijn Rutgers — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:10:28 +0000

Congratulations!

Why not attach these to a car, boat or bigger and create extra energy? I mean, just put these on an electric car and you will drive longer distances! And.. if it can be made waterproof, how about lowering it in water so that waves make it move?

I can think of many more! This is great, my compliments!

By: BIill Mehess

BIill Mehess — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:19:32 +0000

What would be the cost of producing 1000s of these leafs relative to the amount of energy they are producing. Also was the 100pw generated per leaf?

With their 100 fold increase that still works out to only 1 pw per leaf. Am I missing something here?

By: earleramage

earleramage — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:15:06 +0000

Once power generation is acceptable I can see great commercial applications for this technology. E.g as Outdoor decorations and power source, even in the public infrastructure. Imagine pairing street lights with piezo-trees. Now that’s a green idea, lol.

By: trived

trived — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:05:04 +0000

how much voltage can a single piezo-tree generate? what is the way to protect them durig winter and rainy seasons?

By: Mohit Swadia

Mohit Swadia — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:19:41 +0000

Hello,

I really appreciate your innovative IDEA to produce the energy using the Piezo electric Material as a Leaf… I really interested to know more about your research & your results. I would also ask you… any problems in the Rainy Session or during snowfall?

By: Lynn W.

Lynn W. — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:38:31 +0000

So how far are they from making the little fluttering film leaves out of a solar collection material?

By: Charles Tsagli

Charles Tsagli — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:18:49 +0000

Hello dear Researchers,

As an interested person in fostering the usage of an alternative energy sources such as Wind, Solar and Bio l read your recent research finding on Piezo-tree very interesting and remarkable, congrats. I will like to join these researchers.

However Wind Power Technology Companies can get in touch with me for Technology Transfer by making business in Africa.

Thanks for your Info