Solar cooker wins climate change challenge
Shannon Carr-Shand, 9th April 2009, Climate change, Innovation
In the end it was the simplicity of a cheap solar cooking stove which captured the public’s imagination in the FT Climate Change Challenge – our global competition to find the best innovations to tackle climate change.
The Kyoto Box today won the first prize of $75,000, sponsored by technology giant HP. This will allow it to conduct mass trials of the technology in 10 countries, including South Africa, India and Indonesia. You can read more about it here.
This announcement is the culmination of a five-month search to find and reward the most innovative solutions to climate change. The final shortlist, selected by our panel of business leaders and climate change experts, reflects the many levels on which business and civil society need to take action to address climate change.
Our finalists offered ways to reduce new emissions from agriculture, transportation and air conditioning – all critical areas when you consider the Stern Review estimates that agriculture is responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the transport sector 14%, and buildings 8%.
At the other end of the spectrum, another of our finalists, Carbonscape, proposes to reduce current atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, offering an efficient method of fixing carbon dioxide in wood and other organic material as charcoal which can be locked away.
It is heartening to see that the entries drew inspiration from across the scientific world – from biomimicry to the laws of thermal dynamics.
History tells us that new innovation can flourish in an economic downturn as a renewed focus on the competitive edge creates the space for innovators to put their theories into practice. This may be true, but to develop innovations that tackle climate change and are commensurate with the scale of this challenge will require focused financial support. Existing and new technologies will need to be commercialised if they are to reach the tipping point at which they can make a real contribution.
Over the course of the competition, approximately 23,000 people visited the challenge homepage – engaging in the debate on how innovation can tackle climate change, and getting an insight into the new markets that will be created in the move towards a low-carbon economy. With the need to reduce emissions growing ever more urgent, lets hope that this debate has inspired new innovators to focus on tackling climate change.
Read more about the competition and the winner.
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Comments
Forum for the Future welcomes constructive comment and differing opinions. We reserve the right not to publish messages which we believe are commercial or designed to disrupt discussion. We moderate comments according to these guidelines.
Lessons from Mexico
At its core, the idea of solar-powered cookers is a good one. However, it's the implementation in the 'developing world' where things go awry. There was a big push for solar ovens in Mexico the past few years but at the end of the day, the model is far too expensive and communities unconvinced. Part of the problem was that the consultants arrived during the rainy season. The first introduction was a lousy one. We'll keep an eye on your efforts and wish you well. Solar cooking is a blast!
More of should be encouraged
It's nice that HP is going to make R&D in the field of Solar cooker as more of them should be encouraged, they are environmental friendly too. Hope the research ends in a big success and enormous life will be benefit from it.
Solar Power
Solar cookers seems a great idea but I'm surprised they can produce the power. Haven't seen one myself, do they have four cooking rings and a oven?
Re Climate Change Competition winner - clarification
Thanks for all the comments regarding the Kyoto Box winning the FT Climate Challenge Competition. There have been a few posts pointing out that the solar-powered oven is not a new idea. The point of the competition was not to reward a eureka moment but to help an innovative approach to climate change reach the market. As Kyoto Energy founder and competition-winner Jon Bøhmer acknowledges in his company literature and on his application, the concept of solar cooking has been around since the eighteenth century.
There are other versions of solar cookers available on the web and there are also detailed explanations of how to make a version of a similar device. What distinguishes this approach is that the cooker will be mass-produced cheaply in existing factories, the finished item is to be flat-packed for bulk transportation to end users and is extremely cheap at $6.
The $75,000 prize money is going to enable Kyoto Energy to test durable, plastic versions of the cooker with 10,000 people currently burning fossil fuels to clean their water and heat their food. The expert judges and the thousands of members of the public who voted for the Kyoto Box agreed that this simple idea offered the best opportunity amongst the five short-listed ideas for an innovation to help tackle climate change on a big scale.
Please see the press release and our site for more information on the competition and its objectives.
Shannon Carr-Shand, Forum for the Future
Full plans for a solar oven
Full plans for a solar oven that is very similiar to this man's invention found on Solar Cooker International's site:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker
This is an excellent resource for those interested - with many other designs of solar cookers. From the site...
"Solar Cookers International (SCI) spreads solar cooking awareness and skills worldwide, particularly in areas with plentiful sunshine and diminishing sources of cooking fuel. Since its founding in 1987, SCI has enabled 30,000 families in Africa to cook with the sun's energy, freeing women and children from the burdens of gathering firewood and carrying it for miles."
Solar Cooker Winner
As one who has been solar cooking for 19 years, I am pleased to see all of the excitement generated by declaring the Kyoto Cooker as the winner of the Climate Change Challenge.
As one who believes that The Forum For the Future should be both honest and well informed, I am totally appalled that the Kyoto Box is presented as something new.
Solar box cookers with essentially the same design as the Kyoto Cooker has been around for at least 3 decades. I have made them myself and I have purchased them from Solar Cookers International which at one time called itself Solar Box Cookers International.
I also know that a decade or so ago there were radio programs in Kenya (the home of Mr. Bohner) about solar cooking and solar cookers like that of Mr. Bohner. As recently as two months ago there were at least two major solar cooking projects going on in Kenya outside of Mr. Bohner's work.
Solar cooking is great. Getting publicity for solar cooking is great. It even is ok to grant Mr. Bohner $75k so that he can attempt to spread this wonderful concept. However, the Forum is either willfully ignorant or intentially misleading the public with the claim that the Kyoto Box is some new great invention. Simply by googleing Solar Cookers you could have found 1million articles. The first several of which give a wealth of information contradicting the claims of invention by Mr. Bohner.
Sincerely,
A Friend of Solar Cooking
I'd love to see this for sale in camp stores in the United State
I would love to see this same device go on sale in camping stores (or any stores for that matter, like an x-mart) in the United States.
It's a similar idea to mass manufacturing a solar space heater on my website, plans are all over, but why not start making and selling them someone? ( you can check out my website at http://greenideas.webhop.biz )
The "Solar Cooker"
The winning entry "Solar Cooker", is indeed an excellent, inexpensive and easy example of how to reduce emissions, while providing healthy meals for the world's people.
So much so in fact, the Boy Scouts of America have been training their Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts to "build" portable ovens using nothing more than a cardboard box and tin or aluminium foil, for the last 90 years!
Seems to me, a quick read through the Boy Scout Handbook would yield a wealth of "Leave No Trace" guidelines for the world to follow. These guidelines were established in 1907 and continue to be a beacon of education and training in many nations. Youth from all over the world are introduced to the skills necessary to make ethical choices, and to become self-reliant members of their families and communities, while being responsible for and responsive to their environments.
Ellen Pabst von Ohain
Scoutmaster
Troop 21, Boy Scouts of America
Munich, Germany
Solar Cooker
Such simple and innovative gadgets, which could be made with cheap or waste materials will be a boon to world's poor. However, in the interest of protecting the environment, these devices should be used by as many as possible, irrespective of their status in society. Many more such ideas should be put forward and proper encouragement should be given by people and governments.
When will these be available in the USA?
Do you have plans to market a more durable version of this device here in the USA? There are lots of us in more "developed" countries who would like to have a sun oven like this. You could use the extra profits to make more of them for free/cheap distribution in Africa.
Thanks
Sean