This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
Millions of people around theworld cook their food over a smoky fire every day. It is oftendifficult to find wood for the fire. People who do not have woodmust spend large amounts of money on cooking fuel. However, there isa much easier way to cook food using energy from the sun.
Solar cookers, or ovens, have been used for centuries. A Swissscientist made the first solar oven in seventeen-sixty-seven. Today,people are using solar cookers in many countries around the world.People use solar ovens to cook food and to heat drinking water tokill bacteria and other harmful organisms.
There are three kinds of solar ovens. The first is a box cooker.It is designed with a special wall that shines or reflects sunlightinto the box. Heat gets trapped under a piece of glass or plasticcovering the top of the cooker. A box oven is effective for slowcooking of large amounts of food.
The second kind of solar oven is a panel cooker. It includesseveral flat walls, or panels, that directly reflect the sun’s lightonto the food. The food is inside a separate container of plastic orglass that traps heat energy. People can build panel cookers quicklyand with very few supplies. They do not cost much. In Kenya, forexample, panel cookers are being manufactured for just two dollars.
The third kind of solar oven is a parabolic cooker. It hasrounded walls that aim sunlight directly into the bottom of theoven. Food cooks quickly in parabolic ovens. However, these cookersare hard to make. They must be re-aimed often to follow the sun.Parabolic cookers can also cause burns and eye injuries if they arenot used correctly.
You can make solar ovens from boxes or heavy paper. They will notcatch fire. Paper burns at two-hundred-thirty-two degrees Celsius. Asolar cooker never gets that hot. Solar ovens cook food at lowtemperatures over long periods of time. This permits people to leavefood to cook while they do other things.
To learn more about solar cooking, you can write to Solar CookersInternational. The address is nineteen-nineteen Twenty-First Street,Sacramento, California, nine-five-eight-one-four, U-S-A. Or you canvisit the group’s Internet Web site. The address iswww.solarcooking.org.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss.