Turkey’s Pistachio-Powered City Is Not Nuts

It’s no secret that pistachios play a major role in Turkish desserts, but the country’s been working on a way to make these popular nuts an even sweeter part of life. As one of the world’s leading pistachio producers, Turkey has decided to use their abundance of nutshells to fuel a city.

An eco-city will be built in the Gaziantep Province which produces more than half of Turkey’s pistachios. They plan to use the discarded shells to create biogas, an alternative fuel created by breaking down organic material.

While no one’s tried fermenting pistachio shells before, the resulting biogas should generate enough power for up to 60 percent of the city’s energy needs, according to the French environmental engineering company, Burgeap.

That’s a lot of Baklava.

Should this project be approved, Turkey will be the first country to ever use pistachio shells for energy (though the Aussies already beat them to the nut game by using macadamia shells). It will take a couple decades for the city to be fully completed, but it should be able house about 200,000 people.

 Sometimes the biggest ideas can be found in a nutshell.

H/t Ozy