Solar Oven - The Ugly American

**RBB** · 05-31-2008, 07:48 AM

Threads on use of solar energy brought to mind a friend of mine who worked for 18 years in Afghanistan and Pakistan among the Afghan refugees on a number of projects including solar ovens.

Firewood was at a premium among these people and many were getting their limbs blown off - looking for wood in mined areas. Solar ovens had been introduced as a way to get around this, but the Afghans were unconvinced, and couldn't be induced to take them - free of charge. My friend was put in charge of the project. A student of human nature, he soon turned the project around.

First, he helped the Afghans to "own" the project. He figured out a number of ways to build the solar ovens with materials at hand. Example: Their insulation came from downed Soviet airplanes. This could be dangerous. They were once shot at while gathering insulation. He hired Afghans to build and sell the solar ovens.

Second, he put a price on the ovens. He knew people were more likely to value something that had a price than they were something that was a "give-away."

Third: He had women do the sales. After showing them how the oven worked, and convincing them of its utility, he would send them out with a number of solar ovens to do demos and take orders.

From that point on, they were unable to keep up with the orders.

The oven would cook two 2-liter kettles of food in two hours on a hot day, and four hours during the coldest days.

**smokelessfire** · 05-31-2008, 10:40 AM

how do you make the solar oven? sounds like a good idea to have one. details please.

**Rick** · 05-31-2008, 12:04 PM

Good post, RBB. Human nature is just a weird duck the world over. You can sit something out for free and no one wants it. Put a price on it and someone is sure to steal it.

The plans would be interesting if you can get them.

**AKS** · 05-31-2008, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by smokelessfire

how do you make the solar oven? sounds like a good idea to have one. details please.

You can find lots of plans for solar ovens on google. Like this one http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathpro...olaroven.shtml

Good post RBB.

**crashdive123** · 05-31-2008, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by Rick

Good post, RBB. Human nature is just a weird duck the world over. You can sit something out for free and no one wants it. Put a price on it and someone is sure to steal it.

The plans would be interesting if you can get them.

Reminds me of the garbage strike in NYC in the 70's. Funny news report - showed mounds and mounds of trash in front of all of the apartment complexes, except for one. The building manager asked all of the tenants to box and gift wrap their trash. It was "picked up" within a few minutes everytime.

**RBB** · 05-31-2008, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by crashdive123

Reminds me of the garbage strike in NYC in the 70's. Funny news report - showed mounds and mounds of trash in front of all of the apartment complexes, except for one. The building manager asked all of the tenants to box and gift wrap their trash. It was "picked up" within a few minutes everytime.

Unreal! LOL!

As to plans - As I recall it was just a rectangular box, insulated and lined with reflective foil. I believe it had a double cover, one cover made of glass - which sat down over the top, and another with a reflector - which was left open while cooking - to reflect the sunlight into the box.

My friend, of course, spent quite a bit of time perfecting this simple arrangement so it was at maximum efficiency - given the requirement of being built out of local materials. Another item he perfected was a non electric incubator for hatching eggs. He was quite chagrined, on a trip home, to find an almost exact incubator, built in the 1800s, in a local museum.

Will attempt to contact my friend. He is currently working his magic in another corner of the world on something equally dangerous and even more sensitive. Amazing man!

**Chris** · 05-31-2008, 08:44 PM

Second, he put a price on the ovens. He knew people were more likely to value something that had a price than they were something that was a "give-away."

I've read this same thing before in reference to a medication program in Africa. People would get free meds and then not take them, but they found that if they charged a nominal fee people were more disciplined in making sure they took them.

**dilligaf2u2** · 06-04-2008, 07:31 PM

http://solarcooking.org/plans/ is a good place to look for solar stoves!

Don

**bulrush** · 06-05-2008, 09:08 AM

A solar oven works because it is a parabolic mirror, in many cases, reflecting all the sun's rays to a central point. Other designs simply capture the sun's heat in a box, and don't let it escape, by using clear glass as the top. Sun goes in, but most of the heat remains. I really wonder if automobile glass works better, because my car sure feels like an oven after a summer day. Or perhaps it's just the amount of glass on a car, related to a relatively small volume of air.

Originally Posted by Rick

Good post, RBB. Human nature is just a weird duck the world over. You can sit something out for free and no one wants it. Put a price on it and someone is sure to steal it.

Human nature, in this case, and many others, is really about ignorance and lack of analytical ability. People, in general, don't have the ability to think and analyze an object and its possible uses. When someone throws away an old bookcase, most people see unusable trash. I see scrap wood that I can shape into something else a little smaller.

If someone throws away a TV, most people see a broken TV, a useless object. I see switches, capacitors, transformers, that I can reuse in another project. I have the attitude "how can I change this object and make something useful out of it?"

Now think of all the other myriad cases where humans do not analyze a situation, and simply react with their emotions, like an animal. It causes a lot of problems, doesn't it?