Solar cooker resources

 
Solar cooker resources
http://journeytoforever.org/sc_link.html 

**I*d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of  power! I
hope we don*t have to wait *til oil and coal run out before we tackle  
that.** -- Thomas Edison

Solar  Cookers International's Solar  Cooking Archive
http://solarcooking.org/
The most  comprehensive resource on solar box cookers: general information,
news, plans, solar cooking  documents in English, German, Spanish, French,
Italian and Portuguese and  Arabic, country reports, technical reports,
newsletters, the Solar Cooker  Review, multimedia, photo gallery, slideshow,
international directory, NGOs,  manufacturers, supplies, books, mailing list
discussion (with searchable  archives), comprehensive list of links to other  
resources.
 

FAQ -- solar cooking in a  nutshell:
http://solarcooking.org/solarcooking-faq.htm
 
 

Solar cooking documents :
http://solarcooking.org/docs.htm 



Search the Solar Cooking Archive:
http://solarcooking.org/search.htm 



Join the solarcooking-L Mailing  List:
http://solarcooking.org/solar-l.htm 

Searchable mailing-list  archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solarcooking-l/ 



Solar Cooker Review, published two or three  times a year:
http://solarcooking.org/docs.htm#newsletters 



Links:
http://solarcooking.org/links.htm

**Balancing the  Scales** -- speech by Bill Sperber at the Solar Box
Cookers International  Annual Meeting in l990 explains how solar box cookers can
reduce inequities of  health, environment, economics and political freedoms
in the third  world.
http://solarcooking.org/balance.htm

**The big  adventure of a little solar cooker**
http://solarcooking.org/bernardart1.htm
-- Roger Bernard tells how designing a cooker simple enough for  
10-year-old schoolchildren to build in less than an hour led to the development  of a
simple solar cooker for poor rural people. The "Cookit" Foldable Family  
Panel cooker is neither a "solar oven" nor "curved concentrator" but a simple  
yet powerful hybrid. Full plans and instructions at:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Cookit

How the **Cookit** is helping  refugees in Kenya:
http://solarcooking.org/95sep15a.htm 
   

Solar  cooker in Nepal: cost $3

**Understanding Solar  Cookers and Ovens** by Thomas Bowman, Understanding
Technology Series, Technical Paper #  36, Volunteers in Technical Assistance
(VITA), 1985 -- Useful overview of the  pros and cons of the different
types of solar cookers available, from Professor  Bowman, Head of the Mechanical
Engineering Department at the Florida Institute  of Technology, and a VITA
volunteer. He points out that, though solar cookers  were often resisted by
traditional communites in the past, simply because they  weren*t used to
them, these days they often don*t have much choice in the matter  because the
supplies of traditional fuel have run out.
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/vita/solrcook/en/solrcook.htm


**Solar  Cooker Construction Manual** -- 5,000-word illustrated booklet,
prepared by VITA Volunteers,  1967
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/vita/solrckr/en/solrckr.htm

**Understanding Solar Concentrators** -- VITA Technical Paper # 30, 1985,
7,000-word illustrated  booklet.
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/vita/solrconc/en/solrconc.htm

In **Reduction of tropical deforestation by massive use of  solar cookers**
Ari Lampinen of Technology for Life, Finland, explains why the world needs  
200 million solar box cookers.
http://www.ismea.org/INESDEV/ala.html 




Review  of solar cooker designs by Ashok Kundapur: 56 major designs, 59
variations and 66 drawings  of solar cookers. Test data by other researchers, a
new set of parameters for  testing solar cookers, reflectors, and
insulating material.
http://members.tripod.com/~ashokk_3/solar1.htm 


_Solar cookers as a means for reducing deforestation in  Nepal_
(http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/solarnepal.html)  by Anita Manandhar of
the Centre for  Rural Technology in Nepal, where fuelwood demand has  
increased to twice the forest growth.
   

It's made of  baskets!

Nepal*s Centre  for Rural Technology (CRT) is an autonomous private sector,
professional development  organization established in August 1989, engaged
in developing and promoting  effective technologies to meet the basic needs
of rural people.
http://crtnepal.org/new/



**Breakthrough in Kenyan  Refugee Camps** reports on  Solar Cookers
International's work in Kenya. "More than 5,000 families have  attended workshops
and returned home with their own solar cooker. It costs only  US$10 to supply
each of these families with a solar cooker, a black pot, a  supply of trial
food, and instruction on how to use their new cooker. Follow-up  visits
have revealed a high level of use."
http://solarcooking.org/kakuma-m.htm 


**Solar Cookers and  Social Classes in Southern Africa** by William Noble
Grundy -- interesting examination of the failure of  a solar box cooker
project in Lesotho, Southern  Africa: "Several projects have already targeted the
people who need  solar box cookers the most, the rural women. Those
projects have failed for  complex reasons involving the resistance of traditional
cultures to invasion by  foreign innovation."
http://noble.gs.washington.edu/~noble/safrica1.htm



**Cooking with the sun: Chilean village's experiment with solar ovens  
offers alternative to widespread deforestation**, San Francisco Chronicle, July
26, 2001 -- Lucila Rojas remembers  the days when she and her neighbors
risked their lives to cook a hot meal over a  wood-burning stove. "We had to
steal firewood, because there was no longer any  left in the places where you
could freely look," she said. "Sometimes we were  chased (by landowners),
even by gunshots. I was fed up. I didn't want any more  war." Now she has a
solar oven in her home.
_http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/
archive/2001/07/26/MN33373.DTL_
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/07/26/MN33373.DTL)  
Water  pasteurization
**A summary of water  pasteurization techniques** by Dale Andreatta.
**UNICEF estimates that 60% of rural families and  23% of urban families in
developing countries are without safe water. Contrary  to what many people
believe, it is not necessary to boil water to make it safe  to drink... Heating
water to 65 deg C  (149 deg F) for 6 minutes, or to a higher temperature for a
shorter time,  will kill all germs, viruses, and parasites** -- this is well
within the range  of solar box cookers.
http://solarcooking.org/pasteurization/solarwat.htm



**Recent Advances in  Solar Water Pasteurization** by Dr. Robert Metcalf.
**During the cholera outbreak in  Peru, the Ministry of Health urged  all
residents to boil drinking water for 10 minutes. The cost of doing this  would
amount to 29% of the average poor household income," writes Dr Metcalf.  "As
a microbiologist, I have always been perplexed as to why boiling is  
recommended, when this is heat far in excess of that which is necessary to kill  
infectious microbes in water.**
http://solarcooking.org/pasteurization/metcalf.htm



Solar  Water Pasteurization --  Techniques, resources, discussion at The
Solar Cooking Archive
http://www.solarcooking.org/pasteurization/default.htm 
How  to make solar box cookers
Plans and pictures of many different types of solar  cookers:
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/ 


Construction plans for Roger Bernard's  improved **Cookit** Foldable Family
Panel -- as used at the Kakuma refugee project in  Kenya.
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Cookit 


The ** Minimum**  Solar Box Cooker: a  powerful solar oven you can build
from two cardboard boxes in a few  hours.
_http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/
Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker_
(http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker)  



The **Easy Lid** Cooker: designs for box cookers have grown simpler, but
fitting a  lid can still be difficult and time consuming. In this version, a
lid is formed  automatically from the outer box.
http://solarcooking.org/plans/easylid.htm 


**Principles of Solar  Cooker Design** by Mark Aalfs of Solar Cookers
International (in two parts) --  summarizes the basic principles used in the
design of solar box cookers. Heat  Principles, Materials Requirements, Design
and Proportion, Solar Box Cooker  Operation, Cultural Factors.
http://solarcooking.org/sbcdes.htm
http://solarcooking.org/sbcdes2.htm#materials 



_Designing and building home made focusing solar  cookers_
(http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/solarfocus.html)  by Hannu Virtanen -- a
complete guide  to making parabolic cookers using locally available materials.

**You can cook almost anything with the sun  and a *low tech* box cooker
that you can build yourself,** says low-tech guru Doug  Edwards. **On this day
the oven reached 250 F within 35  minutes. Here in California, where I
live, I have cooked a beef  roast on the shortest day of the year where the
outside air temp was 40F.**  Solar cookers, plans, recipes and more.
http://www.cookwiththesun.com/

Links to solar cooking resources and other good low-tech  stuff.
_http://www.cookwiththesun.com/links.htm
_ (http://www.cookwiththesun.com/links.htm)
Parabola  Design Wood Model -- a simple wood model is used as a tool to
assure the exact  parabolic shape of the mirror. Precision is very important to
get a small focal  sun-spot and a high cooking temperature. Details a very
simple drawing tool to  design a parabola, makes any parabolic curve with
ease. You need two pieces of  straight wood, a stiff string and a pin to make
this tool and to be able to draw  any parabola for a desired focal distance
and size.
http://home.nexgo.de/ernst.willand/amsi-model.html

The AMSI Solar Cooker Project
http://home.nexgo.de/ernst.willand/amsi-contents.html


A  Tracking Solar Concentrator for the home experimenter -- Teton
Engineering Inc in the  US developed a 20,000 Btu (6000 watt)  solar concentrator
designed specifically for the backyard mechanic to build  using simple
construction and basic materials. Full-text online manual -- note  the disclaimers
and safety warnings: "Working with solar concentrators is VERY  DANGEROUS."
http://www.ida.net/users/tetonsl/solar/solarhom.htm 
Other  resources
Haybox  cooking: What is a haybox? Simply an insulated box used for slow
cooking.  Put the food in a pot and heat it up, put the pot in the haybox and
it stays hot  for a long time, cooking slowly. Haybox cooking saves energy.
Hayboxes and solar  box cookers go very well together.


Haybox  Cookery -- Sunseed Tanzania Trust
http://www.sunseedtanzania.org/HRC/HRCS_UK.html



How to Use a Haybasket
http://www.sunseedtanzania.org/HRC/How_to_Use.html



Some recipes  suitable for a haybox
http://www.sunseedtanzania.org/HRC/Recipes.html




Rediscover the hay-box cooker -- Mother Earth News January/February 1980. A
non-electric version  of the modern Crock-Pot. Instructions for building
the box and preparing food  items including cooked cereals, pot roasts,
vegetable beef stew, boiled dinners  and baked beans.
_http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/
1980-01-01/Rediscover-the-Hay-Box-Cooker.aspx_
(http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1980-01-01/Rediscover-the-Hay-Box-Cooker.aspx)  




Haybox  how to and description -- Lost Valley Center
http://www.lostvalley.org/haybox1.html


ClearDome SolaReflex diffused foil, and AA flat, bendable mirror surface
sunlight  reflector panels (previously known as SolarFlex) -- achieves the
highest known  level of radiant solar reflection: 97.4%! From ClearDome Solar:
http://home.att.net/~cleardomesolar/solarflex.html 
Books on  Solar Cooking
**Heaven's Flame, A Guide  to Solar Cookers** by Joseph Radabaugh, 144
pages, Home Power, 1991.
Complete  instructions on how to build the high-performance cardboard
SunStar solar  cooker, discussion of other solar cooker designs, question and
answer section,  how solar cookers are being accepted and used around the
world, detailed cooking  instructions. Buy at Amazon.com:
_Heaven's Flame, A Guide to Solar  Cookers_
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962958824?ie=UTF8&tag=jourtofore-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=39095
7&creativeASIN=0962958824)

**Cooking with the Sun:  How to Build and Use Solar Cookers** by Beth & Dan
Halacy, 115 pages, Morning Sun Press,  1992.
Detailed plans for building a plywood multi-reflector box cooker, a  
cardboard single-reflector box cooker, a cardboard parabolic cooker, and a solar  
reflector "hot plate" cooker, with line drawings and photos, history of
solar  cookers, solar cooking tips and necessary cookware, 62 pages of solar
recipes.  Buy at Amazon.com:_
Cooking with the  Sun_
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962906921?ie=UTF8&tag=jourtofore-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=096290
6921) _: How to Build and Use Solar  Cookers_
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962906921?ie=UTF8&tag=jourtofore-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390
957&creativeASIN=0962906921)  
 


**The Expanding World of  Solar Box Cookers** by Barbara Kerr, 1991.
The history and theory behind solar  cooking, by one of the developers of
the simple but effective cardboard solar  box cooker. "Unaware that it
'should' be made of metal or wood, I used cardboard  boxes and thus opened a new
line of solar box cooker development" (March 1976).  With plans and
instructions for building and using a solar box cooker. Online  version at Solar
Cooking International:
http://solarcooking.org/kerr.htm
For a  printed copy, with photos and diagrams, send $15 to Kerr-Cole Solar
Box Cookers,  PO Box 576, Taylor, AZ 85939, USA, email
_bkerr@cybertrails.com_ (mailto:[hidden email])




"Making  the Most of Sunshine –- a Handbook of Solar Energy for the Common  
Man", by S. Narayanaswamy, Vikas, New Delhi.
The author's passion for  solar energy grew out of his career as a top
administrator in Kerala state in  India. It includes hundreds of  interesting
tidbits on every form of renewable energy, but two-thirds of the  book deals
with solar cooking. More than a dozen different solar cooker designs,  along
with practical sections on the best day-to-day uses of any solar cooker.  
The final chapter, "Promotion of Solar Cookers," is essential reading for
anyone  introducing solar hardware, especially in developing countries. Buy the
book  online:
_http://www.gobookshopping.com/book_detail.php
?p=sndid&q=sch&cat_id=508&pid=25484_ (http://www.go
bookshopping.com/book_detail.php?p=sndid&q=sch&cat_id=508&pid=25484)


Solar  Recipes -- Based on an original solar coobook produced by the
Sacramento  Municipal Utility District 10 years ago. Introduction, Cooking
Guidelines,  Beverages, Bread, Casseroles, Desserts, Eggs & Cheese, Meat Dishes,
Pasta,  Poultry, Snacks, Vegetables. Full-text online:
http://solarcooking.org/recipes/ 
Schools solar
"Sunlight Works -- Solar  Science Educational Activities for Children" by
Heather Gurley and Bob Larson.
Large-format, well-illustrated,  32-page book aimed at using solar cooking
as a learning activity for children  ages 8 to 12. Variety of activities
illustrating solar concepts, including plans  for building a solar box cooker.
From: SunLightWorks, Inc., 2255 H Shelby Drive, Sedona, Arizona  86339, USA,
email: _blarson@sedona.net_ (mailto:[hidden email])
 
 


_Solar box cookers_ (http://journeytoforever.org/sc.html)  

_Solar box cookers for schools_ (http://journeytoforever.org/edu_sc.html)

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