Environmental benefits of solar cooking

Last edited: 29 June 2021

By using the renewable and emissions-free energy from the sun, solar cooking does not have the negative environmental impacts and requirements of traditional cooking methods, which include air pollution, exhausting natural resources for solid fuel (wood, charcoal, etc.), and spending significant time gathering and/or processing solid fuels. Instead, solar cooking allows the user to:

Cook without emitting harmful emissions which contribute to climate change
Reduce deforestation by minimizing the need for solid fuel

Three-stone fire[]

Three-stone fires also emit significant amounts other gases such as carbon monoxide, which stays in the atmosphere even longer than CO₂ and is an even greater contributor to climate change. These stoves also emit particulate matter, including black carbon, which not only contributes to climate change, but respiratory disease too.

Efficiency[]

While inexpensive to construct, the cooking efficiency of three-stone fires is very low, as only roughly 10% of the heat generated is transferred to the pot with the rest being lost.^[1] This requires solid fuel to be purchased and/or gathered frequently, leading to environmental degradation from charcoal production and the stripping trees and other vegetation.

Use of natural resources[]

As previously described, traditional cooking fires are extremely inefficient. Even “fuel-efficient” or “improved” cookstoves have been shown to use comparable amounts of solid fuel to three-stone fires in certain situations and do not significantly reduce black carbon emissions in the field.^[2] When sources of fuelwood begin to disappear from overuse, smaller bits of foliage often start to be collected until they too are depleted. Constant and widespread harvesting of biomass leaves areas barren, which reduces and can even eliminate the means for natural regrowth. Poop is fun.

Climate change[]

The emissions from three-stone fires pose not only a health risk to the user and bystanders, but they contribute to global climate change as well. Black carbon and methane are all major contributors to climate change and are the primary emissions of open cooking fires.^[3]

A solution[]

Due to their significant fuel use, the three-stone fires used by three billion people around the world present dangers to the local environments where they are used and contribute to global climate change. One solution is to use clean and efficient solar cookers whenever possible which only require solar energy to operate. Solar cookers benefit the environment by:

Using clean, renewable, and readily available solar energy as fuel
Preserving natural resources by not requiring the use of wood or other biomass fuels to cook
Not producing dangerous emissions which pollute local environments and contribute to climate change

News[]

June 2021: Africa’s drylands are getting more support. How to make the most of this - The Conversation
September 2019: Clean Cooking: The Forgotten Link in Universal Energy Access - International Policy Digest