Cooking with the sun

Box and panel solar ovens.  Photo by Michele Melio.

Cooking with the sun is easy and very inexpensive. Over 300 days in a year Coloradoans wake up to the big ball of fire in the sky. That ball of fire is a huge energy resource. Yet few Americans have taken advantage of this free energy resource shining in our faces on almost a daily basis.

Remember the days when people used to cook their bodies in the sun with those foil reflectors used in the 1960’s and 70’s? Solar cookers use the same strategy, but instead of reflecting sunlight on human flesh it is reflected on animal flesh or soybean curd for your next meal.

Americans continue to cook their bodies on the beach or in their backyards by collecting ultra violet rays (radiation). Remember the days when we used to immerse ourselves in baby oil to get a better roasting in the sun? This isn’t much different than lathering a chicken in olive oil and cooking it in a solar oven. Many more Americans are now using sunscreens to protect themselves from this harmful radiation. However we continue to bake in the sun and never realize we’re exposing ourselves to solar radiation (free energy), which often leads to questionable moles and maybe even melanomas (fast spreading skin cancers). Even tanning booths have been leading the headlines in connection to skin cancers. While we continue to harness the sun for a darker complexion at many risks, few use it in a beneficial manner to cook and dehydrate food, produce electricity, heat water or homes in our country. What is stopping us from collecting this free energy resource? Is it cost or convenience or both?

It’s a fact that the United States is the largest consumer of resources and fossil fuel energy on the planet. China and India may be catching up, but Americans have the lead in consumption of resources. According to the Energy Information Administration the U.S. consumes more energy than the entire continent of Europe (2006).

Someone who relies heavily on the sun is John Avenson, who gave a tour of his solar home (Near zero home tour in Westminster) last week. The tour included the opportunity to eat fresh baked coffee cake straight from a solar oven on Avenson’s deck. Mary Carhartt was there to share the fresh baked goodies from a number of solar ovens on display. She volunteers her time with the Colorado Renewable Energy Society to educate the public on how to harness the sun to cook food. She provided an extensive demonstration on using solar ovens in your own home.

Carhartt stressed the importance of using solar ovens and that there isn’t any cost to provide power to them. The only work involved is preparing the food and monitoring the oven’s solar collection. It’s as easy as giving your food a tan in these light weight solar ovens.

Solar cookers are much less expensive than installing a photo voltaic array or solar thermal collectors on your roof. How about cooking for free and using very little resources? It’s easy to cook with free energy. Just walk outside on a summer’s day and you’ll find it. It’s a choice of using the energy to tan skin or to cook food. Which do we need to survive?

Women in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America are using these solar ovens, which have saved forests, reduce pollution, and drastically reduce the time women and children partake in collecting firewood for fuel. They cook during the day when the sun is shining and are happily saving time, money, and the environment. The most popular solar cooker used in these regions is the Cookit oven.

Solar ovens are inexpensive, simple to use, and completely portable. There are four types of solar ovens. There is a box cooker, the inexpensive panel cooker, the parabolic solar cooker, (which works from a focused beam of sunlight), and the hybrid cooker, (which uses electricity to supplement solar thermal energy). The parabolic solar cooker can reach temperatures of over 600 degrees Fahrenheit and can burn skin and flammable objects. It works much like a magnifying glass with a number of mirrors reflecting concentrated solar onto a pot of food. Solar Roast Coffee in Pueblo uses the parabolic solar cooker to roast their coffee beans. Parabolic cookers are the most efficient of all the cookers.

The reason solar ovens save money is that no fuel or electricity is required. No one has to chop down trees or collect wood or use the electrical grid. The energy comes to us free from the sky everyday.
While a solar cooker may not be a convenient way to cook every single day of the year, it is quite beneficial to cook as an alternative to a gas or charcoal grill or cooking inside your home. There isn’t any pollution, including smelly indoor pollution from burning food, grease, or stinky foods like cabbage, onions, and fish. It doesn’t heat up your home when you’re trying to keep in cool. Plus, the solar box and panel cooker won’t burn your food and there’s no danger of starting a fire like other traditional cooking methods (even microwaves burn food and catch on fire). Colorado has an ideal climate and elevation for solar energy because it has clear air quality (less humidity and less oxygen) which provides more solar energy.

However, unlike the oven in your home, some models do not come with a thermometer. For instance, there’s a convenient backpacking solar oven that can fold up with your camping gear but it doesn’t have a thermometer. Carhartt demonstrated this solar cooker called the Molly Baker solar oven made in Oregon. It’s durable and weighs less than a pound. Many of the box models do come with a thermometer, but the inexpensive panel models do not. However there is a very simple solution to this problem..

Many women in the third world countries using the cookers didn’t have thermometers but Carhartt demonstrated an easy solution by using a tube called a wax pasteurize check. This is a small calibrated tube of wax that can hang around your neck. Water pasteurizes at 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The wax in the tube melts at that temperature, which is a simple way to test temperatures for pasteurization. This is very important to people who do not have a clean water to drink, as 1.8 million people die from waterborne diseases every year. Many of those who die are in developing countries.

The solar cookers are all portable, affordable, light weight, and can be taken anywhere. Costs start from under $10 and can go up to over $200. The least expensive cookers are made from cardboard or cloth. These can reach temperatures of 250-275 degrees Fahrenheit. The Sun Ovens, the most popular box solar ovens, reach temperatures of 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit. They cost $289 and come with an internal thermometer. Real Goods sells a variety of solar cookers, including a hybrid model that works with electricity and uses 75% less power than a conventional oven. Many solar cookers can be built instead of bought for the adventuresome and engineering types.

In addition solar ovens are an excellent learning opportunity for children. There isn’t any danger of fire with solar box and panel ovens, so kids can experiment and learn how to harness the sun’s free energy. Children can also learn that a black pot will cook faster than a white pot in a solar cooker. The pots are hot so potholders are still required to remove cooked food from the ovens.

Yes, it’s free energy shining down almost every day from the sky. Let’s harness the sun to cook food not our delicate skin.
 

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Upcoming green events:

Action alert for those of you using net metering or planning to use net metering!  There will be a public hearing at the PUC offices Wednesday, August 5th at 4:00 PM at 1560 Broadway, Ste. 250 in Denver.  The public is welcome to speak there mind in regards to the proposed fees Xcel plans to charge to those using net metering (mainly solar P.V. users).  To learn more about information go to: http://www.cres-energy.org/action_div1.html

Colorado Green Tech Meetup - August 13th at Law Auditorium at CU Boulder.  Networking begins at 6:00 PM and the program starts at 7:00 PM.

John Avenson will have another tour of his home held on Saturday, September 5th from 10:00 AM -12:00 PM.  This tour will focus on the Solar Sheat technology mentioned in the Near zero home tour in Westminster article from last week.    For more information contact Neshama Abraham Paiss at Neshama@abrahampaiss.com.

Upcoming stories:

Part II of the series Clean Energy 101:  Are hydropower, hydrogen, and the nuclear option clean?

Public speaks out on proposed net metering charges from Xcel

Green Living Lifestyles 101: Eating green

Trading in gas guzzlers for fuel efficient vehicles: Is this green?

Part II of Clean Energy 101: Are renewable energy and biofuels truly green?

Colorado off grid resort