Energy efficient? We leave 'em in the dust...
As Brian says, "Greenleaf ratings are for amateurs." (but he says it tongue in cheek.)
Here we are on April 17, cooking eggs on our solar cooker.
It unfolds and assembles into a lightweight saucer, reminiscent of those used by SETI for searching for radio signals, only smaller. Easy to carry. Set up on the lawn, the little gadget focuses the sun's rays to an element, which is in truth nothing more than a metal ring where you can set a pot. Or a frying pan. Sun comes out from behind a cloud, and voila, Le Chef de BBQ is in business. And how.
This will boil a litre of water in one minute. Cooking eggs is a snap.
The engineers figure that this simple device produces 1500 watts of power. Green power. Free, renewable, zero emissions. They are used extensively in China, Mongolia, remote areas where they are so far off the grid they don't know what the 'grid' is. With no emissions except the tasty smell of cooking food, no demands on hydro, coal, propane or oil, this little gadget gives new meaning to the phrase Green Eggs.
It seems impervious to breezes blowing across it, and we can hardly wait to get it to the beach for the next Wiener Roast, where it can join the Potato Cannon as a conversation piece. And, come the next hydro failure up here - which happens whenever we get a storm - we'll be able to make coffee for the masses. Not to mention omelettes.
This, I believe, is the first time I've heard of a solar cooker.
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