(Conversation recorded on March 13th, 2024)
Show Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by Solar Oven collector and educator Luther Krueger to discuss the ins and outs of solar cooking. In the western world, most of us are used to indoor, gas or electric stoves, typically powered by fossil fuels, and in a third of the world, people are still using solid fuels – wood, coal, or dung – which come with many health and environmental risks. Solar ovens are an alternative which makes use of passive solar energy at a range of temperatures and can be made from basic or reused materials. What would it take on a cultural and economic level for more people to adopt these low-tech solutions? How can solar cooker designs vary to match the needs of the individual and community in varying environmental conditions? Could we take inspiration from this example of Goldilocks Technology for other areas of our lives in a slower, lower-energy throughput future?
About Luther Krueger
Since 2004 Luther Krueger has been collecting unique classic and contemporary solar cookers and promoting solar cooking as the means to halt deforestation, clean unsafe drinking water in remote areas of developing countries, and reducing any community’s dependence on fossil fuel. Krueger’s unincorporated, volunteer-run Big Blue Sun Museum of Solar Cooking aims to preserve the history of solar cooking while promoting the practice through the video series on the Museum’s youtube channel and as contributing moderator to the Solar Cookers World Network on social media and by promoting solar cooking at regional events. Krueger is a Senior Community Faculty member at Metropolitan State University where he teaches the Capstone course for the Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration degree program. Krueger retired from the Minneapolis Police Department in 2023 after twenty-eight years as a civilian community liaison and crime analyst, where he developed and launched several community policing initiatives.
Watch on YouTube
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 – Luther Krueger Works and Info, Solar Cooker Wiki, Solar Cooking Museum Youtube
02:10 – Silent Spring Rachel Carson
05:07 – Percentage of Americans using gas vs electric stoves
05:45 – New York and California phase out of gas stoves
06:19 – Globally many still cook with wood fires coming with health and environmental effects
08:31 – Solar Cookers International
15:26 – Box cookers, Panel cookers, Parabolics
16:42 – Kris De Decker, TGS Podcast Part 1 and Part 2
16:55 – Alexis Zeigler, Living Energy Farm
18:54 – Intermittence
19:21 – Hybrid cooker
20:40 – Haines Solar Cooker
24:45 – Juana María Hernández Jarquín
25:16 – Kerr-Cole Sustainable Living Center
26:50 – DIY Solar Cookers
28:36 – Ed Eaton
29:32 – Auroville, The Solar Kitchen
33:15 – Sunplicity
35:19 – SK14
36:25 – Bhutanese refugees to Nepal, Solar cooker aid
38:39 – Le Présage Solar Cooking Restaurant
40:38 – Collapsology
44:29 – GoSun Solar Cooker
46:03 – Fresnel Lens Solar
47:39 – Solar Education Project
49:01 – Know Watts Cooking – YouTube
52:10 – Chris Hackett, Obtainium
58:03 – Lucky Iron Fish
1:06:19 – Solar Oven Partners
1:07:50 – How a Young Activist Is Helping Pope Francis Battle Climate Change | The New Yorker
1:08:20 – Deepak Gadhia
1:10:15 – Tom Sponheim
Comments
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Just in case it’s not here, Tamera in Portugal have done some great work on solar, including cookers: https://www.tamera.org/solar-research/
I met many who worked with Tamera at the 2020 and 2023 Consolfoods conference in Faro Portugal and A Caruna Spain–amazing work!
It’s so sad, Nate Hagens, is certainly one of THE GREATEST CONTRIBUTORs OF CLEAR INFORMATION ON OUR PROGRESSING WORLD CRISS. Here he is also spreading these total garbage solutions that hearken from the ’70s. Have we not noticed that all that wonderful intention just led us to fall ever further and faster behind?
What we need is a fundamental change of plan. That could start with Stage 1) recognizing that every natural system begins unsustainably (!). In nature new living systems start with growth, first with a period of rapidly multiplying extraction, then usually in Stage 2) get the signal to mature instead of overshoot. That changes the use of its energy and resources to perfecting its design rather than push it to extremes and collapse.
Of course, OUR civilization grew assumption Stage 1 would be forever. Forever upsetting is more the truth. It’s the formative Stage 1 that natural growth uses to prepare for harmonizing new lives that work so well and last so often. So….to “transcend capitalism” then (not just pretend), the job is to FIND HOW TO DO IT THE WAY WE SEE EVERYWHERE IN NATURE (and – in our own great successes with growing things to perfection too).
I’d be glad to help, but think anyone should start the search for that themselves, so they have good questions about it to make it easier for me to help.
More notes on LinkedIn and at synapse9.com/signals
Luther, I’ll be in touch by email very soon, if I am able to find an email address for you.
Edit: email sent. I think!
That’s great! I’d be happy to be a sounding board for your cooker design, with around 90 in my collection I’ve gotten to know some great features and some pitfalls to avoid. And if you’re at the stage where you’d like to share your design with the earthwide solar cooking community, I’d be happy to visit via zoom or in one my future video road trips!