Sunny Way: Thumbs Up!

Solar Cooking Anybody?

Camping this summer? Then get rid of that old kerosene cooker and replace it with a solar-powered oven that is perfect for baking goodies or slow-cooking stews. After just an hour in full sun, The Hot Pot Solar Cooker can be used for six hours and can reach temperatures of up to 400 degrees. Now this is what we call, roughing it!

What is Solar Cooking?

Solar cooking is a method of cooking food and boiling water using only the power of the sun and a solar oven or solar cooker. Solar cookers use no other fuel source except for the energy emitted from the sun.

Solar cookers concentrate the sun’s energy using various techniques such as the box, parabolic or trough design. All these designs in essence do the same job in that they heat food or boil water by concentrating the Sun’s energy onto a pot filled with food or water.

Solar cooking can be used to cook almost any kind of food, pasteurize water (water heated to 65C – safe to drink). The process of solar pasteurization kills 99% of the germs present in contaminated water.

The popularity of solar cooking is increasing in many market sectors, in particular the 3rd World where daily cooking for many requires fire, fuel gathering and frequent attention to food being cooked and the added cost of buying in conventional fuels such as coal, firewood or fossil fuels is forcing people to recognize the advantages and benefits of Solar Cooking.

Over 2 billion people, a third of the world’s population, rely on wood-fuelled fires to cook food. Of these people, around 500 million frequently encounter fuel shortages yet live in ideal climates for solar cooking”, says Kevin Porter of Solar Cookers International (SCI).

First World countries are now starting to embrace solar cooking. The camping sector is also recognizing that solar cooking offers a viable, alternative and fun way of cooking food in the wilderness without having any impact on the Environment.

With the rise in oil prices, supposed depletion of fossil fuels and the ‘peak oil crisis’ affecting us all, it is only a matter of time before solar cooking hits the mainstream and people start embracing this technology as a means of alternative energy and sustainable living.

Oil prices are starting to spiral out of control and ‘peak oil’ is now impacting on all of us.

Now is the time for us to start embracing abundant energy sources such as the power of the Sun and encourage the use of devices like the Solar Cooker, which capture such abundant sources of energy. Thus offering the opportunity for us all to have a free and sustainable means of living.

(by Rob from SolReka.com, March 2008)

Will this be your next barbecue with friends?

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it, about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

2 Responses to “Sunny Way: Thumbs Up!”

1. SolReka says:

   October 1, 2009 at 7:34 pm

   A great collection of solar cooking pictures you have in this post. Nice job.

   The parabolic cooker up in the mountains is a perfect example showing how they actually do work.

   Keep up the good work.
2. visionary says:

   October 1, 2009 at 9:01 pm

   Thanks for quick response. I am happy that you like it. It’s good to hear from people who care about energy and ‘worship the Sun’. All the best!