Solar furnace

One calls solar furnace or solar cooker a system of heating or cooking based on the capture of the light radiations emitted by the Sun, their transformation into heat then the use of this heat for the heating or the cooking of food.

History

One of the first solar cookers was built by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in 1767.

The most powerful solar furnace

It is about the large solar furnace of Odeillo in the the Eastern Pyrenees. It makes it possible to concentrate the energy of “10.000 suns” and to reach higher temperatures with 3000°C. It is an installation of the CNRS which shelters the laboratory PROMES, whose main axes of research are the materials and extreme conditions as well as conversion, the storage and the transport of energy. It is possible for the public to visit an exposure in the establishment, one learns some simple principles there on renewable energies and the environment, the principle of operation of a solar furnace, and to view a film giving also there an account of the research currently undertaken within laboratory PROMES.

Individual cookers

There exist many associations in France, and probably in the world, which diffuse the techniques of solar cooking, in particular for the disadvantaged countries, but also in the richer countries. Indeed, there is no reason which the techniques of solar cooking are limited to poorest. It is a mode of cooking ecological, very economic, without fossil , simple and very social energy neither electric nor . The propagation of this principle would allow in areas of the world disadvantaged, to cease the Déforestation due to the cooking of food.

In the countries in the process of development

In France, there exist several associations of promotion of solar cooking:

diffuse association Bolivia Inti-South Sun in Latin America, in particular in Bolivia, of the assistances to the women and children who must go regularly to seek wood for the cooking of food, and this more and more far, causing with the passage always more deforestation. Bolivia Inti-South Sun is put in liaison with local managers, then made training courses with women who all will set out again with the solar furnace that they will have manufactured. They can use it in any season, if there is sufficient sun, which is the only criterion in all the countries of the world.
association Atouts Sun prepares projects bound for Africa. The solar cooker of Assets Sun is a solar barbecue, which makes it possible to mix during cooking. Thus one can prepare the African traditional dishes. One can also make use of it in France like barbecue.
finally, the company Solar furnace Development assembled a project of experimentation of the solar artisanal production in partnership with CNRS and the commune of Mount-Louis (the Eastern Pyrenees).

See too

Solar energy
Solar furnace of Odeillo

External bonds

the solar furnace of Mount-Louis
the solar cooker of Assets Sun
Build your solar furnace

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