For several decades various solar oven designs have typically been used in third world regions where electricity or other fuel sources are hard to find. Solar cookers have been used effectively in sunny African countries like Sudan to not only cook food, but also for water purification and pasteurization.
And like other solar technologies, there's no reason first world countries should not promote solar cooking at home to help save energy. Although cooking may take four times longer than conventional ovens, no electricity or fuel is used - just the power of the sun.
Over time many solar oven designs have been mastered, but they generally fall into three main categories: parabolic solar cookers, panel cookers, and box cookers.
Parabolic Solar Cooker:
A parabolic solar cooker, as the name implies, is made from any reflective material in a parabolic (bowl like) shape that focuses sunlight to a single point. It is the most effective at cooking food quickly and efficiently, however, it tends to be more expensive and hard to make by hand. Furthermore, its fixed shape makes it less portable and raises some safety concerns.
Panel Design:
A panel cooker is any cooker made with a series of flat, reflective panels arranged to direct sunlight to a focal point.
The panel shape is not as efficient as the parabolic shape, but it has the advantage of being foldaway, portable, and rather simple to make. These cookers can be found in a number of interesting deigns, but the simplest is by far the one made by folding one of those reflective windscreen blinds.
Box Design:
The third type, a box cooker, operates rather differently to the parabolic and panel cookers. Instead of reflecting light to a central point, it absorbs, traps and intensifies the light to create heat.
Essentially the entire box heats up, allowing larger quantities of food to be made at once. The box cooker is easiest of the three to make, since it can literally be made from a cardboard box, tin foil, and sheet of glass or perspex.
In fact most of these solar oven designs can be made from household materials in a short space of time. And what you can cook in them is really limited to your imagination - you can bake bread, steam vegetables, make stir-fries and even a roast chicken in them. Another advantage is the amount of power you'll save - unlike a conventional oven, your cooker needs to be outside to operate, so it put less strain on your kitchen's air conditioning system.
To think that - according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey - almost 75% of Americans prepare at least one hot meal at home per day, 33% prepare two or more, a large amount of electricity can be saved if more of us try solar oven design at home.
There really is no excuse for not looking more into solar cooking. With a number of affordable solar cookers and free instructions available on the internet, you owe it to yourself, your kids and the environment to try one out for yourself.
And like other solar technologies, there's no reason first world countries should not promote solar cooking at home to help save energy. Although cooking may take four times longer than conventional ovens, no electricity or fuel is used - just the power of the sun.
Over time many solar oven designs have been mastered, but they generally fall into three main categories: parabolic solar cookers, panel cookers, and box cookers.
Parabolic Solar Cooker:
A parabolic solar cooker, as the name implies, is made from any reflective material in a parabolic (bowl like) shape that focuses sunlight to a single point. It is the most effective at cooking food quickly and efficiently, however, it tends to be more expensive and hard to make by hand. Furthermore, its fixed shape makes it less portable and raises some safety concerns.
Panel Design:
A panel cooker is any cooker made with a series of flat, reflective panels arranged to direct sunlight to a focal point.
The panel shape is not as efficient as the parabolic shape, but it has the advantage of being foldaway, portable, and rather simple to make. These cookers can be found in a number of interesting deigns, but the simplest is by far the one made by folding one of those reflective windscreen blinds.
Box Design:
The third type, a box cooker, operates rather differently to the parabolic and panel cookers. Instead of reflecting light to a central point, it absorbs, traps and intensifies the light to create heat.
Essentially the entire box heats up, allowing larger quantities of food to be made at once. The box cooker is easiest of the three to make, since it can literally be made from a cardboard box, tin foil, and sheet of glass or perspex.
In fact most of these solar oven designs can be made from household materials in a short space of time. And what you can cook in them is really limited to your imagination - you can bake bread, steam vegetables, make stir-fries and even a roast chicken in them. Another advantage is the amount of power you'll save - unlike a conventional oven, your cooker needs to be outside to operate, so it put less strain on your kitchen's air conditioning system.
To think that - according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey - almost 75% of Americans prepare at least one hot meal at home per day, 33% prepare two or more, a large amount of electricity can be saved if more of us try solar oven design at home.
There really is no excuse for not looking more into solar cooking. With a number of affordable solar cookers and free instructions available on the internet, you owe it to yourself, your kids and the environment to try one out for yourself.
About the Author:
Other than solar cooking, have you ever wanted to make your own home solar power for under $200 and start reducing your power bill? If so, then get our free Earth4Energy Report - an insider's look at the #1 rated step-by-step renewable energy instructions on the internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment