After checking in on the Kurzweil AI site regularly this past week, today a news item popped up that grabbed my attention: Electrical Circuit runs entirely off power in trees. This topic has a lot of potential. I should explain what I’m looking for – our semester long project is to create a brand platform for a surprising future technology. By jove I think I’ve got it!
I’m going to take this one and run with it. Apparently trees give off some type of signaling similar to humans, and this provides the electrical current that these MIT scientists are harnessing. I think the following will be the quote from which I will try to create a concise and catchy brand platform: ‘Tree power is unlikely to replace solar power for most applications, Parviz admits. But the system could provide a low-cost option for powering tree sensors that might be used to detect environmental conditions or forest fires. The electronic output could also be used to gauge a tree’s health.’
‘The sensor system produces enough electricity to allow the trees’ temperature and humidity sensors to regularly and wirelessly transmit signals. Each signal hops from one sensor to another, until it reaches an existing weather station that beams the data by satellite to a forestry command center.’ Graphic / Rebecca Macri
My theme could be something like: ‘Harnessing tree power will provide valuable information on forest activity, including preventing forest fires.’ Other information could be related to the tree’s health, environmental conditions in the area, and US border activity such as smuggling radioactive material.
Something very promising about these developments is that trees would be considered valuable for national security, and therefore more protected. It’s possible that older, larger trees contain more electrical activity than younger, slimmer trees. If there were any opportunity to prevent further deforestation of old growth forest, this is the chance! Anything that increases the safety of Americans will attract people in hordes to the cause.