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The Sun is the primary source of all energy on earth. Solar energy absorbed and stored by plants is burnt up as firewood / charcoal. All fossil fuels are remains of animals and plants which would never have existed without solar energy, the evaporation of water from rivers and lakes is possible because of energy from the Sun. Collected in dams, it is possible to produce hydroelectric power from water. The heating of the earth’s surface produces wind energy when the hot air and the cold air meet, geothermal energy from geysers use heat stored from the sun.
Solar energy is plentiful, it is non – polluting ecologically, it is available at the point of use, it is free is the best and ready alternative to the fast depleting fossil and wood fuels in the world. What other natural resource deserves to be studied researched on and utilized than solar energy? All living things need energy and whereas plants utilize solar energy directly, human beings get most of their energy from well-cooked foods. Cooking is an activity that differentiates humans from animals, this activity traverses, race, class, location or creed. Over half of the world’s populations use fuel wood to cook their food, and as the fossil and wood fuels continue to be depleted, the world faces a fuel crises and these people are in danger of suffering from malnutrition and vitamin deficiency as well as from water borne diseases from drinking untreated / un boiled water.
What options are open to us in continuing to use natural resource to provide the much needed energy? Pay higher prices in terms of ill heath from a polluted environment, lack of food because of unpredictable whether patterns, global warming, receding economies, and wars to control the remaining resources – or do we opt to work together towards the invention, promotion and use of technologies that can harness this natural resource – the SUN?
One such technology is the solar cooker, the earliest recorded solar cooker was made by a Swiss naturalist, Horacre de Saussure in 1767. Solar cookers that we know today begun evolving in the 1950s. Solar cookers have many advantages, on the health, time and income of the cook and on the environment. Solar cookers can pasteurise water and make it safe for drinking. Solar cooking uses free, clean energy from the Sun. Plentifully available in the Eastern Africa region, solar energy is one sure way of utilizing a natural resource in sustainable manner.
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Sustainable
Resources 2004 > Talks
and Workshops
