Tropicana’s new billboard makes orange the new green

By Jeff Hughes Published April 15, 2011

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Forget solar, wind and clean burning coal; oranges are the future of fuel. Tropicana’s innovative new billboard ads in France are completely powered by oranges. They have taken the old science fair idea to a higher level. The simple layout of the billboard uses the oranges to power a sign reading “Energie Naturelle,” which means natural energy for those without Google translate.

The point of the ad is that the clean green energy provided by Tropicana oranges is the same energy it promises for your body. If it’s good enough for an LED sign, it’s good enough for you.

Recommended Videos

Relying on oranges to cure our present energy crises may not be an immediate solution, since it turns out this simple billboard came about through lots of hard labor. Thousands of zinc and copper barbs are used to produce electrolysis, and each orange provides 0.7 volts for the giant multi-cell battery. The installation uses 2,500 oranges to produce 1,800 volts to power the words of the billboard. Tropicana also says that the oranges were reused at the end to produce biogas or compost, as if this outdoor campaign wasn’t green enough.

The geniuses behind the French advertisement are the DDB advertising company in collaboration with the digital creative production company Unit9. Director Johnny Hardstaff of Unit9 has also made a catchy 90-second video to go along with the billboard, playfully detailing the three months of work it took to put together this advertisement. Green’s a great way to get attention and hopefully other companies take a cue from Tropicana’s outdoor ad in the heart of Paris.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

I'm a SF Bay Area-based writer/ninja that loves anything geek, tech, comic, social media or gaming-related.

Topics

Emerging Tech

AI bots are now trying to sabotage public health policies, like banning disposable vapes

Thousands of AI bots voted in a public health poll to block sales restriction on disposable vapes. It's like Big Tobacco is back from the dead.

Woman smoking a vape.

In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.

Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.

Emerging Tech

A tiny smartphone gadget can detect some of the nastiest chemicals in your water

Scientists built a tiny smartphone gadget that can spot toxic 'forever chemicals'

Smartphone-connected drinking water safety sensor Featured

What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.

Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.

Emerging Tech

Did comets help life begin on Earth? New simulations challenge the idea

A Cambridge-led study finds that impact speed and angle made successful delivery extremely unlikely

Comet

Comets probably weren’t reliable couriers for the ingredients that helped life begin on Earth. A new Cambridge-led study found that fragile organic molecules would usually have been destroyed when the comets carrying them struck the surface.

Published in Scientific Reports, the research tracked hydrogen cyanide, a molecule involved in chemistry that can precede life. Rare successful deliveries remain possible, but the simulations offered little support for a steady supply from comets.