Showing posts with label Solar Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solar Cooking. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Solar Oven Society
Description:
exists to promote solar cooking to the American public and to provide a way to partner with the over 2 billion people worldwide who lack adequate fuel for cooking their food.
Persons Helping People (PHP) (the sponsor of the Solar Oven Society) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established in 1991 and based in Minnesota. Following the wishes of its first donor, Virginia Persons, PHP is dedicated to helping alleviate hunger in developing countries by helping people help themselves.
Solar Household Energy
Description:
A not-for profit corporation, seeks to harness free enterprise to introduce solar cooking where it can improve quality of life and relieve stress on the environment. Working with private entities and NGOs, SHE designs and oversees training and distribution projects in Mexico, Central America and Africa.
Currently, more than half of the world’s population relies on biomass (wood, animal dung and crop residue) for cooking, according to the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO). LINK This practice causes disease, economic hardship, and environmental degradation. Modern solar cooking ovens like SHE’s “HotPot” offer practical, affordable, long-term relief.
Manufacturers and vendors of solar cookers
Description:
Known manufacturers or vendors of solar cookers and solar ovens.
The "Villager" Sun Oven
Description:
A large scale solar oven large enough to create temperatures of 500 degrees F, and cook enough food at "large" scale. It mounts on a trailer, it's so large.
Solar Cooking Documents
Description:
An extensive set of document references on solar cooking, the benefits of solar cooking, the design of solar cookers, using solar cookers, and more.
The "Heavens Flame" solar cooker
Description:
An article describing a simple solar cooker design, and some of the history of solar cooking.
The "Easy Lid" Solar Cooker
Description:
A very simple solar cooker design made from cardboard boxes and a lid.
The history of solar cooking
Many scientists of the era, and laypersons as well, knew about the use of glass to trap heat, but Horace de Saussure, a French-Swiss scientist, wondered why that commonly understood phenomenon had not led to additional applied use.... De Saussure continued his experimentation, using other materials, adding insulation, cooking at different altitudes, etc. This European scientist, exploring solar energy nearly 250 years ago, is widely considered to be the father of today's solar cooking movement. Others followed his lead, including the Briton, Sir John Herschel, and American Samuel Pierpont Langley, later head of the Smithsonian, both of whom conducted experiments with the hot box, the forerunner of today's box cooker, probably still the most common design in use.
...His second project was more successful; he combined the heat trap idea with that of the burning mirror, creating an efficient solar oven from an insulated box, which when further modified by adding reflecting mirrors, even became a solar still.
...Late in the 19th century, other pioneers in the development of solar thermal (heat generating) technologies include Aubrey Eneas, an American who followed up on the work of Mouchot and formed the first solar power company, building a giant parabolic reflector in the southwest USA.
...After that period, the years of the latter half of the 20th century show a number of individuals and groups experimenting with, demonstrating the potential, and conducting small and large projects using solar cooking devices.
...Obviously, the organization has been required to up its goals routinely, as the world's population has continued to burgeon, to well over six billion in 2004, meaning that today the target group is over two billion.
...This thumbnail sketch is only a small part of the history, much unknown even to solar cooking supporters, of the many men and women who have caught a glimpse of the potential of the sun to cook food and have attempted over the centuries to spread that knowledge to others who can benefit.
Article Reference:
Minimum Solar Box Cooker
Description:
A minimal solar cooker design based on a box with a glass lid.
Developing an intuitive feel for the dynamics of solar cooking
When you look into a solar cooker, the visible light inside doesn't seem to be that much brighter or more concentrated than the sunlight striking us as we stand and look in. Our bodies are certainly not getting hot enough to burn, much less cook, so intuition tells us that food in the oven wouldn't cook either.
...You can use your eyes to see the visible light, your skin to feel the infrared light, and your imagination to see the way the light is transformed and then trapped inside the oven.
Article Reference:
Solar Cooking
URL:
Description:
An extensive index of resources related to solar cookers and solar cooking. Solar cooking involves capturing sunlight, either behind glass panes or using reflectors, focusing it on a cooking pot, thereby using the sun's light to cook ones food.
Daily Tip: Make Solar Powered Tea
Description:
Sun Tea is easily made - just get a large jar, fill with water, put in tea bags, place in the sun. It's an example of solar cooking, and is a way to make teas that don't require being cooked.
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