Enchanted forests with magical trees that talk or have human-like traits are common in folklore passed throughout the ages. In modern times, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Harry Potter series feature trees that do more than just grow quietly in the forest.

Well, talking trees might soon be more than a children’s fantasy.

Voltree Power has developed an inexpensive electricity generation system that harvests metabolic energy from trees and converts it to usable electricity. This electricity powers a wireless network of humidity and temperature sensors in remote forest lands as part of Voltree’s Early Wildfire Alert Network.

These talking tree networks can instantly detect the onset of wildfires and continuously monitor forest conditions in hard-to-reach and widespread areas, enabling small fires to be identified quickly before becoming larger problems.

The amazing thing about this concept is that the trees themselves are a source of power and the wireless sensor network will never need batteries or run out of juice. Voltree’s “bioenergy converter” has been integrated into a power module that is more reliable than if it were powered by other renewable sources such as wind or light. The bioenergy converter has no moving parts that can break, is weather resistant, completely quiet, and creates no heat or noise. It doesn’t harm the trees, either, and will last as long as the trees grow. Now that sounds like an enchanted forest to me.

—Paul McGinniss