Plugged in: Startup hopes to tap electricity from trees

01/09/2006 08:05 AM
By Christopher Calnan

Don’t tell MagCap Engineering’s president he’s barking up the wrong business model.

His Canton company claims to be developing a process of generating electricity from living trees and is working with an unidentified business in The Netherlands as a possible investor.

But local energy experts have questions about the concept behind the proposal.
MagCap Engineering LLC wants to patent a process that converts the natural energy of a tree to usable direct-current electricity, company President Chris Lagadinos said.

He expects to find investors to help pay for the research needed to figure a way to increase the tree power from less than 2 volts to 12 volts sometime this year, creating an alternative to fossil fuels.

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