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Overcoming fuel shortages in
developing nations
The energy problem is far more extreme in
less-developed parts of the world than in the United States. In
places like eastern Africa, natives have trouble finding
sufficient firewood to cook dinner or heat water to kill bacteria.
Women sometimes walk 20 to 30 miles to obtain only a two-day
supply of cooking fuel.
The simple solar box cooker is helping people to stay healthy in
places such as Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Guatemala, Kenya, Haiti, and
Pakistan. In Botswana in 1988, for example, solar box cookers were
introduced because of a 50 percent malnutrition rate. This
devastating health problem was not caused by food shortages but by
a lack of fuel.
Two Arizona women created these cookers, Barbara Kerr, a nurse
from Taylor, Arizona, and Sherry Cole, a former freelance writer
from Tempe. Their solar box cookers reach temperatures as high as
325 degrees Fahrenheit and easily kill cholera bacteria at 150
degrees. The cookers are constructed with two corrugated boxes,
one smaller than the other, 100 feet of aluminum foil, a pint of
glue, a lot of newspaper, and a sheet of glass.
Kerr, and Cole’s first box cooker was created in the 1970s, and
the first sale went to microbiologist Bob Metcalf of California
University in Sacramento. Metcalf formed the organization Solar
Box Cookers International in 1987 to promote the cookers for
health and environmental benefits worldwide. The group’s
expeditions have received support from the Pillsbury Co. Meals for
Millions Applied Nutrition Project, Foster Parents Plan and Food
Industry Crusade Against Hunger.
In Guatemala in 1988, Metcalf
introduced solar box cookers to women in rural areas who spent
one-third of their time gathering firewood. So many trees had been
chopped-down that hillsides were eroding during seasonal rains and
ecosystems had been destroyed.
Most people in Kenya do not have electricity and many do not have
running water. Before the box cooker, meals were often prepared
over a stone hearth with a wood fire. Solar cookers reduced the
need for constant, tedious fuel gathering.
Solar cookers offer many other benefits to people in developing
nation. They eliminate the toxins common to foods cooked directly
over a fire and prevent health problems caused by constant
exposure to smoke and fire.
The cookers are also used to heat and purify water. Bacteria in
water are a primary cause of chronic diarrhea, which contributes
to thousands of cases of infant malnutrition and death.
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