Solar Cooking Device

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 2

Solar Cooking Device

[By ROBERT SAVAGE In the "Christian Science Monitor.’’]

A cooking device needing only the sun’s rays for fuel and costing only about 10 dollars is now available in under - developed countries.

Dr. Harry Tabor, director of the National Physical Laboratory of Israel, has built such a solar cooker and is distributing it in Asia and Africa.

He was interviewed about his development while in Boston attending the recent meeting of the Solar Energy Society.

Dr. Tabor pointed out that solar cookers had been tried before and had been rejected. As a result, he said, many people doubted that they would ever be used extensively. But he believed the lack of acceptance in some cases stemmed from lack of proper planning. In many places solar cookers would never be used until people were educated to accept them.

However, he said that in some parts of the world they would be accepted now if certain requirements were met

The cooker should be designed so that It could

be produced at the national or regional level in the country in which it was to be used. It should perform well over a long period. It should be simple to operate and should require very little maintenance. Dr. Tabor said the solar cooker he had developed met all those requirements. His device used parabolic glass mirrors to focus sunlight on a cooking pot. The mirrors, similar to those used as shaving mirrors, were mass produced in the United States and elsewhere. They were inexpensive to import. Such mirrors, said Dr. Tabor, would be far easier to clean than the plastic or metal mirrors used in many previous solar cookers. The mirrors should last four years or more. Replacements cost about 30 cents. The mirrors were held in

place either by simple clips or with thread bindings. “The attachment can be carried out by the user, since no technical skill is required,” he said.

If a mirror should break, the cooker would continue to operate at about 91 per cent efficiency. The framework of the cooker was made of iron tubing.

“The entire fabrication process is limited to cutting, drilling, and welding the iron rods, bars, and tubes,” he said. Dr. Tabor said the framework would prove extremely durable, lasting 10 years or more even without repainting. All the iron tubing was of considerable thickness.

The simplicity of construction and the ease of assembly permitted the cooker to be shipped over long distances completely disassembled. This reduced the likelihood of mirror breakage.