Seville makes use of its 48 000 orange trees, using the fruit to create clean energy

The city of Seville, Spain is home to 48,000 orange trees: a beautiful site, but a hassle to the city when the fruits rot and fall from the trees, posing a hazard to pedestrians and a huge chore for the city’s cleaning department. The city has launched an initiative to use the oranges for a greater purpose: electricity. The scheme was developed by Emasesa, the municipal water company, which will capture methane from the oranges as they ferment and use it to drive the generator that powers one of the city’s water purification plants. They hope to eventually scale the project and use all the oranges in Seville, which would require an investment of around €250,000. Eventually, the plan is to put surplus electricity back into the grid; 1,000 kilograms of oranges can produce enough energy to power five homes for a day, so much that if all the oranges were recycled, 73,000 homes could be powered cleanly.