Mt. Juliet resident Paul Van Buren will travel to Africa this month, taking with him solar cookers that will allow the women, who are infected with HIV/AIDS, to cook without firewood, adapt to a changing environment and learn to live more positively.
After taking several solar cookers to Zimbabwe that didn’t catch on or hold up, Van Buren, a member of the Mt. Juliet Breakfast Rotary Club, spoke with fellow Rotarian Roger Haines from a San Diego club. Haines has developed a solar cooker appropriate for Africa.
“It has a high heating point,” he said. “The price is reasonable, and it can be recycled without pollution.”
“Interestingly it’s not the sun’s heat that cooks,” Van Buren said. “A solar cooker lets the [ultraviolet] light rays in and then converts them to longer infrared light rays that cannot escape. Infrared radiation has the right energy to make the water, fat and protein molecules in food vibrate vigorously and heat up. In combination with a black pot and a plastic sleeve that holds in the energy, one can boil water within(continue reading at Lebanon Democrat)