Powered by the sun's rays

Local group gets international award for solar cooker that dishes up cheaper meals, safer water and cleaner air

By Stephen Magagnini -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, August 22, 2006

The nongovernmental organization, which is dedicated to saving the world with solar power, will receive an award from the World Renewable Energy Congress.

Scott Haapala of the congress said the award, sponsored by the European Union, recognizes the nonprofit group's "outstanding achievement and vision" in helping Africans protect their environment and liberating them from the crippling task of gathering firewood and cooking over a smoky fire.

The secret of the group's success is the "CooKit," a 3-by-4-foot piece of cardboard lined with aluminum foil that harnesses the sun's rays to cook food and pasteurize water. About 90,000 "CooKits" are heating up in Africa, where they are being manufactured and sold for $8 or $9, said Pascale Dennery, the group's technical assistance director.

The group has helped introduce 500,000 solar cookers to 25 nations where people spend half their $1-a-day wages to buy firewood to cook their meals, said Bob Metcalf, a microbiologist who co-founded the group in 1987. Solar cookers allow them to spend that money on food instead of firewood, said Metcalf, who teaches at California State University, Sacramento.

Metcalf says he hopes the award will get him 30 minutes with Bill Gates or some other investor to spread the gospel of the CooKit, which could be used by "2.5 billion people today" who rely on wood, charcoal or animal dung to cook meals.

Smoke-related diseases kill more people annually than tuberculosis and malaria combined, Dennery said, and Africans have killed each other over firewood.

Metcalf also invented the Water Pasteurization Indicator -- a reusable sealed test tube with wax that melts when food or water has been pasteurized at 149 degrees Fahrenheit. "It takes about 90 minutes in the sun," he said.

About 5,000 of the tubes are in use in Africa, Dennery said.

The group's success has been achieved on an annual budget of $800,000, 80 percent of it from individual donors. "People who have lots of resources who want to do good haven't discovered us yet. This could be multiplied 100,000 times around the world right now," Metcalf said.

Calling himself "an ambassador for the sun," Metcalf is sure he could convince Gates "of the enormous good this tiny organization in Sacramento could do to make an impact on the poorest people in the world."

For more information, go to www.solarcookers.org or www.WREC2006.com

About the writer:

• The Bee's Stephen Magagnini can be reached at (916) 321-1072 orsmagagnini@sacbee.com.