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I'm Gwen Outen
with the VOA Special English Development Report.
Millions of people
around the world cook their food over a smoky fire every day. It
is often difficult to find wood for the fire. People who do not
have wood must spend large amounts of money on cooking fuel.
However, there is a much easier way to cooking food using energy
from the sun. Solar cookers
or ovens have been used for centuries. A Swiss scientist made
the first solar oven in 1767.
Today people
are using solar cookers in many countries around the world.
People use solar ovens to cook food and to heat drinking water
to kill bacteria and other harmful organisms. There are 3 kinds
of solar ovens. The first is a box cooker. It is designed with a
special wall that shines or reflects sunlight into the box. Heat
gets trapped under a piece of glass or plastic covering the top
of the cooker. A box oven is effective for slow cooking of large
amounts of food.
The second kind
of solar oven is a panel cooker. It includes several flat walls
or panels that directly reflect the sun's light onto the food.
The food is inside a separate container of plastic or glass that
traps heat energy. People can build panel cookers quickly and
with very few supplies. They do not cost much. In Kenya, for
example, panel cookers are being manufactured for just 2
dollars.
The third kind
of solar oven is parabolic
cooker. It has rounded walls that aim sunlight directly into the
bottom of the oven. Food cooks quickly in parabolic ovens.
However, these cookers are hard to made. They must be re-aimed
often to follow the sun.
Parabolic
cookers can also cause burns and eye injuries if they are not
used correctly. You can make solar ovens from boxes or heavy
paper. They were not catch fire. Paper burns at 232 degree
Celsius. A solar cooker never gets that hot. Solar ovens cook
food at low temperatures over long periods of time. This permits
people to leave food to cook while they do other things.
To learn more
about solar cooking, you can write to Solar Cookers
International. The address is 191921 street, Sacramento
California, 95814, USA. Or you can visit the group's
international website. The address is www.solarcooking.org.
This VOA
Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. I'm
Gwen Outen.
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