House of Saud will reward this Saudi scientist because he was inspired by an Israeli scientist

"Suliman Abdalla, professor of physics at King Abdulaziz University, is developing a prototype "potato cell" battery which, he told SciDev.Net, could be commercially released within a year. In Sri Lanka, a similar battery powered by plantain pith has been developed by R. P. Wijesundera, physicist at the University of Kelaniya, who is now planning to commercialise it.  Both researchers said they were inspired by a 2010 paper by Israeli and US researchers, which showed that simple potato-based batteries could produce electricity in remote rural areas.  "The key contribution of our 2010 paper is in the introduction of the 'make-it-yourself' battery concept," said Alex Golberg, one of the paper's co-authors and a fellow at the Harvard Medical School, United States.  He told SciDev.Net that the paper had demonstrated that an "affordable, cost-effective, low-power battery can be built in any place using already available materials".  Writing in the Journal of Renewable Sustainable Energy in November, Suliman Abdalla's team demonstrated that potato-based batteries can be more than twice as efficient as a standard 1.5V battery — and 26 times cheaper."  (thanks Ahmet)