Solar Ovens

[unspeakablehorror]

I like to consider different technologies that can be used to reduce petroleum dependence.

One technology I find intriguing in this respect is the solar oven.  The idea is simple: direct conversion of the sun's rays into concentrated heat that can be used to bake, boil, or fry food.  Here's some of the popular designs:

https://www.oneearthdesigns.com/blog/compare-solar-cookers/
https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Evacuated_tube_solar_cooker_designs

Pros:
 *No electricity conversion involved, so there's no solar panels, batteries, or other electronics needed to power the oven. 
 *No fuel required

Cons:
*Requires sunlight to operate

The above are the general pros and cons of the concept, though each design may have its own pluses and minuses.  For example, some solar ovens can operate very well in cold, sunny conditions but others cannot.  Some are safer than other designs.  Some can reach very high temperatures that other designs can't.  And some can be constructed at home very inexpensively (eg. https://www.instructables.com/id/Best-Solar-Oven/).

Obviously this idea is very useful for making food, but it can be applied to other realms as well.  There's really no reason this concept can't be applied to producing electricity on its own in place of solar panels since electricity can be produced by a process driven by steam, and one could imagine a large solar cooker that is capable of producing large amounts of steam. I'm sure I had a link for this at some point but I don't know where it is cause I'm disorganized lol.

Though using it to create electricity via steam would have the disadvantage of a water requirement, which could possibly be an issue with deploying this type of electric plant  in the desert (though how much water would be required?  How efficiently could it be reused?).  Regular solar panels probably don't require as much water, though I presume some is necessary to clean them (I assume less than would be required for a steam powered electric plant, but I don't know how much).   But if the steam-powered electric plant were near (or on) the ocean perhaps it could just use ocean water? 

Comments

[sl_walker]

My oldest made one in science class once. Pretty neat idea. I like the idea of a solar hot water heater and you can even make your own solar forced air heat, if you're handy.

[unspeakablehorror]

A solar cooker makes a great science project! It's amazing to think that such a thing can be made out of a simple cardboard box and foil and such. It's possible for those to get hot enough to boil water, so they definitely have their uses. And yeah, solar hot water heaters and solar forced air heat are cool ideas too! I'd love to make one of the parabolic solar cookers sometime because I hear they are even more powerful (can get hotter and heat food faster) and can be made with cardboard and foil too. Probably one big reason why they don't tend to end up being kid's science projects is that they can be kind of dangerous, though. Anything that gets put in the focus point of that parabola (which is just some point sitting in thin air in front of the parabola) is going to get roasted!