Making a Better Solar Cooker 167
New submitter jank1887 writes "Back in 2010, the aid organization Climate Healers gave a number of solar-powered cookstoves to rural Indian villages. The stoves were rejected by the communities, mainly because they were useless when they were wanted most: for the evening meal sometimes after the sun goes down, and for breakfast before the sun has risen. Following this, the group issued a challenge to EngineeringForChange. Details of the challenge include the need to provide 1kW of heat at about 200C for two hours in both early morning and late evening, and the users should be able to cook indoors, while sitting. A number of groups, mainly at U.S. and Indian engineering institutions, accepted the challenge, and developed potential solutions. Now, almost a year later, the ten finalist designs have been selected. The actual papers have been posted to the E4C challenge workspace. The goals of most of the designs are to keep the technology simple, although there are a few exceptions, and many include sand-, oil-, and salt-based concentrated thermal storage. Many reports include some level of discussion on the social and economic considerations, barriers to acceptance and sustainability, and how to overcome initial resistance to adoption."
Re:Interesting idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Considering 80% of my cooking is at 350F, that's sufficient.
It looks like a number of these designs can't even come close to that:
You can't heat a hotplate to 350F with 212F steam, let alone steam that's cooled off substantially by expanding through PVC pipe to enter your kitchen. People want to cook their food, not just warm it up.
Re:Interesting idea... (Score:4, Informative)
Steam can certainly be much hotter than 212F; that's just the minimum temperature to get your reservoir boiling.
Re:Interesting idea... (Score:2, Informative)
My comment took into account superheating. This is why I called it the minimum temperature, you barely literate angry teenager.
Thanks, Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)