Lemon-power, now rhubarb

Press, 8 January 1980, Page 16

Lemon-power, now rhubarb

by' KEN COATES in London The answer is not a lemon, say experts when it comes to assessing possible alternatives to the fuel crisis. There was immediate Interest when it. was reported that a Kidderminster man has run a small electric motor for five months on the power of one lemon, now black and shrivelled.

Mr Anthony Ashill, a watch-mender, set up in his shop window a lemonpowered advertising sign which revolves;

Engineers at the Chloride group, of Manchester, one ot the leading companies exploring new kinds of batteries and electric vehicles, did some quick work , on a conventionally powered calculator.

They estimated, sadly, that it would need. 5000 million lemons to power one family saloon car, and the entire annual citrus crop of Israel, 1.5 million tons, to fuel three commercial vans.

The requirements Of a torch would be more modest: 100,000 lemons; and a colour television set, 10 million.

They would keep going

as long as the lemons kept moist. Mr John J. Jones, of Chloride, said the lemon was a well known power source, and had long been used to 'demonstrate the principle of the battery to schoolchildren.

Place one copper and one zinc wire in a half lemon, place your tongue across them, and the acid in the fruit will produce a very small shock,.he says. The scientists calculated that one lemon will produce sufficient electricity to power, at best, a digital clock.

The problem with lemons is the same'as that facing battery designers and which is ‘delaying development of the electric car: in spite of encouraging experiments with a sodium sulphur battery, engineers have not yet fully solved the problem of making a powerful energy source that is not impossibly heavy. Mr Ashill is not deterred by the experts’ findings and foresees the day when orchards will be worth more than oilfields.

He plans to speed up his research programme by connecting his television set to a bunch of rhubarb stalks.