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Solar Cookers for your Tropical Island
By Islomaniac | December 9, 2007
I always like to feature new technology that can make island living easier and/or more comfortable. Now solar cookers aren’t exactly “new” technology. After all, people have been using the sun as a form of energy forever.
Nonetheless, solar cookers are emerging as a popular way for adventurers, campers and tropical island owners to cook a hot meal. Solar cookers are ovens that heat food using only sunlight and since they use no fuel and they cost nothing to run.
There are many different types of Solar cookers. The basic principles of solar cookers are:
- Concentrating sunlight: Some device, usually a mirror, is used to concentrate light and heat from the sun into a small cooking area, making the energy more concentrated and therefore more intense.
- Converting light to heat: Any black on the inside of a solar cooker, as well as certain materials for pots, will improve the effectiveness of turning light into heat.
- Trapping heat: Using a clear solid, like a plastic bag or a glass cover, will allow light to enter, but once the light is absorbed and converted to heat, a plastic bag or glass cover will trap the light inside using the Greenhouse Effect
Solar cookers can be purchased at many hardware stores and most camping suppliers. In addition
you can also build your own solar cooker relatively easily. I am not a construction expert but I actually built one a few years ago. It didn’t work great but I was actually able to cook a hot dog using it.
In conclusion if you are looking for a way to cook on your island but you don’t want to worry about transporting fuel, a solar cooker may be the way to go.
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Topics: Island Advice, Island Technology, Environmental |
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March 25th, 2008 at 9:57 am
I am atudent at Gulu University Uganda,sir i would like to be helped with instructions,theories and related literature on the construction of a solar box cooker,a circular arc concentrator.Iam doing this as my project to help adress the energy problem in uganda,Am also doing it as a requirement in partial fullfilment for the award of abachelor degree in science education of gulu university