Scientists turn humid air into renewable energy

Realising Nikola Tesla’s 1930s theory that the Earth could one day act as a super battery, a team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have successfully generated hygroelectricity.

‘We are on the threshold of a gigantic revolution, based on the wireless transmission of power,’ wrote Nikola Tesla in the 1930s.

‘We will be enabled to illuminate the whole sky at night and eventually we will flash power in virtually unlimited amounts to other planets.’

The Serbian-American inventor, who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system, was — almost a century ago — theorising that the Earth could one day act as a super battery.

Today, that theory has been realised by a team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who have successfully generated a small but continuous amount of renewable energy from humidity in the air.

‘To be frank, it was an accident,’ the study’s lead author, Professor Jun Yao, told the Guardian.

‘We were actually interested in making a simple sensor for humidity in the air, but for whatever…