Solar Cookers

[pegkerr]

This is an absolutely wonderful idea.

Tell me about a wonderful idea that would make the world a better place. An idea that gives you hope for the future. We all could use some inspiration.

Comments

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

Hi. I've been reading you for ages via friendsfriends, and just added you today. I went to visit this place yesterday (for work), and the energy in the room -- the number of volunteers, the quality of the one-on-one instruction -- was absolutely astonishing.

Even small things, local projects, can make a big difference...

[ironymaiden]

you can make your own biodiesel, from stuff we throw away. i think it's the most exciting alternative energy out there.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

A acquaintance told me her husband converted one of their cars to run on grease.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I like the Heifer Project, which works at a local level helping people afford farm animals.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//www.heifer.org/&ei=cZ1OQ8PTIbP6YJ6U8L4M&sig2=9_M9fzi048_sDLYFViHYRQ

[aome.livejournal.com]

Oxfam does something similar, sponsoring goats, donkeys, camels, cows, etc.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I'm rather fond of diesel engines which have been converted to run on vegetable oil; restaurants normally have to pay to dispose of their used cooking oil, so they're happy to give it to drivers for free. Drivers get free fuel. It runs cleaner than diesel or gasoline. Seems like everyone wins. I would seriously consider doing it if we had a diesel-based car (which we don't, currently).

[loup_noir]

Biodiesel is very popular out here on the coast. There is a veritable armada of old volvos and VWs with purple and white stickers proclaiming that they run on biodiesel. The exhaust smell is negligible and we can grow the stuff!

I'm also big on small-scale wind energy production. I want a little windmill that will power a jack pump to fill our water tanks. There used to be scads of them around Las Vegas when I was a kid, mostly at derelict farms. Each had a little green zone around them.

They're talking about a new development (Antioch? Livermore?) that they want to build that would require solar panels for electricity.

There's hope.

Hi, Peg! I've been meaning to add your journal for ages and just recently got around to it. So many wonderful comments about you and your writing, how could I resist?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you here, and welcome to my journal!

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I just heard about it from an acquaintance a few weeks ago. The site is currently so popular, it times out.

Boy, if I owned a restaurant that used vegatable oil, I would have been on this idea a long time ago.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just picked that site at random; there's tons. Just type "vegetable oil car" into Google and a whole bunch of sites will come up.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

As soon as my brain works again, I might.

Mold is over 25,000 today. We're aLL ZOMBIES....

[beadslut.livejournal.com]

I vote for making manners fashionable again. It would make us all much politer and much easier to get along with.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

http://www.encinosmiledr.com/future.htm

Forget about a long, tension-filled appointment with your dentist. ‘Nano-dentology’ will produce great-looking pearly whites within a relaxed morning's visit.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The children push the merry-go-round again and again. As they run, a device in the ground beneath them begins to turn. With every rotation of the merry-go-round, water is pumped out of a well, up through a pipe, and into a tank high above the playground.


"A few feet away from all the fun, students in uniform turn on a tap. Clean, cold drinking water pours out.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

We had a solar cooker when I was growing up in Africa. Very handy, except during monsoon season.

[franticgoddess.livejournal.com]

I thought that said solar cookies. Which would be lovely really, little golden cookies. I suppose you would also have to eat them warm, and they would make you happy.

Solar cookers, huh?

[jeanineers.livejournal.com]

I guess I could cook from late june through early september.

(Nice temperate weather in Seattle. Never too cold or too hot, but it does cloud over in mid september and doesn't reliably clear until late june)

Re: Solar cookers, huh?

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

My sister-in-law uses a solar cooker in Seattle in the appropriate seasons, to wonderful effect. In late August, we had both brownies and baked potatoes from her cooker.

A little off topic...

[only-sound.livejournal.com]

but have you ever been to or heard of the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin?

Re: A little off topic...

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

No, I have not. Tell me about it.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I could use one 10 months out of 12...

A couple of years ago, a factory process that will convert trash to a medium-high grade of oil came on the scene. No, it's not a perpetual motion gig--it works. Buffet's son was one of the initial backers. The problem was, as I recall, that they didn't have enough trash to feed the factory in the location they built the factory, and also, the price of oil was still less than the conversion price for a profit.

That was before the past year or so. I wonder if they've continued with the idea? I'd buy stock in it...I'd go to work for them. There will always be trash, you see...and oil is getting pricier every day.