Steven E. Jones
BYU
“Appropriate Technology: Easy To Make Solar Cookers”

Biography:

B.S. in Physics at BYU, 1973. Ph.D. in Physics, Vanderbilt University, 1978. Post-doctoral research at Cornell University and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Currently a full Professor of Physics at BYU.

"Several years ago, I woke up to the fact that half of the world's families must burn wood or dried dung in order to cook their food. In many places, people are running out of fuel and damaging the environment by destroying trees and bushes.

The SUN provides free radiant energy. If only we knew how to use it effectively - now we do! I will describe the principles I have learned by study and experiment over the past several years regarding how to cook food and pasteurize water simply and quickly, using the sun's free and ubiquitous energy. I enjoy using my simple solar cooker and showing unbelievers that the sun will really cook food in a short time. A physicist friend of mine was astounded when I showed him water boiling in my solar cooker on a cold winter day in Provo. Another was surprised when I showed him ice that had formed when the air temperature was a pleasant 50 degrees overnight, in the same electricity-free "cooker" using simple night-cooling principles.

Solar box cookers cost around $60-$300 each and are slow and cumbersome to use. With the advanced solar cooking principles described here, one can bring the cost down to about $6 per solar cooker. And I suppose that one could distribute billions of these worldwide and replace parts should something break, all supplied by the wealthy nations. But I believe that a much better approach is to provide information on HOW to cook with the sun, then let the people build their own solar cookers using micro-enterprise and local ingenuity. Some supplies may be needed, and a few example cookers would be useful to help people get started in their locality. In this way, the simple yet effective solar technology may spread quickly and the people will help each other locally.

I will describe the principles of solar cooking and show a few model cookers, with the help of BYU students."