Seville s streets are lined with gorgeous orange trees (Credit: Simon & Vick/CC-BY-NC 2.0/Flickr)
The over 48,000 orange trees that permeate all corners of Seville, Spain, not only fill the city s air with the pleasant smell of azhar, or orange blossoms, in spring; they also yield over 16,500 tons of fruit every winter. Though that gives the capital of southern Spain’s Andalusia region the bragging rights of being Europe s top orange-producing city, the fruit is too tart to be consumed fresh. While some of the produce is used to make marmalade and orange liqueur, most of it ends up in Seville s landfills. However, that may change soon thanks to an ingenious idea to use the oranges to produce clean energy.
Seville brings back old tradition of gifting Queen of England oranges thelocal.es - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thelocal.es Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Last modified on Tue 23 Feb 2021 13.14 EST
In spring, the air in Seville is sweet with the scent of azahar, orange blossom, but the 5.7m kilos of bitter fruit the city’s 48,000 trees deposit on the streets in winter are a hazard for pedestrians and a headache for the city’s cleaning department.
Now a scheme has been launched to produce an entirely different kind of juice from the unwanted oranges: electricity. The southern Spanish city has begun a pilot scheme to use the methane produced as the fruit ferments to generate clean electricity.
The initial scheme launched by Emasesa, the municipal water company, will use 35 tonnes of fruit to generate clean energy to run one of the city’s water purification plants. The oranges will go into an existing facility that already generates electricity from organic matter. As the oranges ferment, the methane captured will be used to drive the generator.
A role model : how Seville is turning leftover oranges into electricity msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.