(Information below extracted from different articles by Ariel Schwartz, Helen Tunnincliffe and Shannon Carr-Shand)
THE Kyoto Box oven has won the FT Climate Change Challenge, organised by sustainable development charity Forum for the Future.
The Kyoto Box costs €5 ($6.60) to make and is based on the greenhouse effect. An acrylic cover traps heat from the sun while a silver-foiled outer box and an inner box painted black concentrate the heat. Insulation between the two boxes comes from straw or newspaper. Its inventor, Jon Bøhmer, says that it will halve the need for firewood in developing countries, saving carbon emissions, reducing the need for sometimes dangerous fuel-collecting expeditions and also reducing respiratory problems caused by smoke inhalation. As well as being of use for cooking, the heat generated by the box can boil ten litres of water in two hours, helping to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases
Bøhmer is a Norwegian-born inventor and entrepreneur based in Kenya who set up the design and engineering company Kyoto Energy to develop alternative energy products for the developing world. He says of the oven: “We’re saving lives and saving trees. I doubt if there is any other technology that can make so much impact for so little money.”
He plans to use the £75,000 prize money to conduct large-scale trials of a stronger, plastic version of the Kyoto Box in ten countries including India, Indonesia and Tanzania.
Bohmer envisions the eventual mass production of an equally cheap version of the Kyoto Box made from recycled plastic. He is hoping that the cooker will be eligible for carbon credits. The yearly profit from each stove would be passed on to the user, allowing the box to pay for itself.
The Kyoto Box won out because of its potential for cheap mass manufacturing and the ability to affect billions of lives.
UPDATE: A reader points out that the cardboard solar cooker idea is not an original one. Jewish World Watch has been sending cardboard cookers to refugees in Chad for over two years, and instructions for DIY cookers have been online even longer. So what gives? Why did the Kyoto Box win over more original ideas?
Also, I'd like to include in this article a comment from Shannon Carr-Shand (Forum for the Future) stating as follows:
"There have been a few posts pointing out that the solar-powered oven is not a new idea. The point of the competition was not to reward a eureka moment but to help an innovative approach to climate change reach the market. As Kyoto Energy founder and competition-winner Jon Bøhmer acknowledges in his company literature and on his application, the concept of solar cooking has been around since the eighteenth century. There are other versions of solar cookers available on the web and there are also detailed explanations of how to make a version of a similar device. What distinguishes this approach is that the cooker will be mass-produced cheaply in existing factories, the finished item is to be flat-packed for bulk transportation to end users and is extremely cheap at $6. The $75,000 prize money is going to enable Kyoto Energy to test durable, plastic versions of the cooker with 10,000 people currently burning fossil fuels to clean their water and heat their food. The expert judges and the thousands of members of the public who voted for the Kyoto Box agreed that this simple idea offered the best opportunity amongst the five short-listed ideas for an innovation to help tackle climate change on a big scale. Please see the press release and our site for more information on the competition and its objectives."
THE Kyoto Box oven has won the FT Climate Change Challenge, organised by sustainable development charity Forum for the Future.
The Kyoto Box costs €5 ($6.60) to make and is based on the greenhouse effect. An acrylic cover traps heat from the sun while a silver-foiled outer box and an inner box painted black concentrate the heat. Insulation between the two boxes comes from straw or newspaper. Its inventor, Jon Bøhmer, says that it will halve the need for firewood in developing countries, saving carbon emissions, reducing the need for sometimes dangerous fuel-collecting expeditions and also reducing respiratory problems caused by smoke inhalation. As well as being of use for cooking, the heat generated by the box can boil ten litres of water in two hours, helping to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases
Bøhmer is a Norwegian-born inventor and entrepreneur based in Kenya who set up the design and engineering company Kyoto Energy to develop alternative energy products for the developing world. He says of the oven: “We’re saving lives and saving trees. I doubt if there is any other technology that can make so much impact for so little money.”
He plans to use the £75,000 prize money to conduct large-scale trials of a stronger, plastic version of the Kyoto Box in ten countries including India, Indonesia and Tanzania.
Bohmer envisions the eventual mass production of an equally cheap version of the Kyoto Box made from recycled plastic. He is hoping that the cooker will be eligible for carbon credits. The yearly profit from each stove would be passed on to the user, allowing the box to pay for itself.
The Kyoto Box won out because of its potential for cheap mass manufacturing and the ability to affect billions of lives.
UPDATE: A reader points out that the cardboard solar cooker idea is not an original one. Jewish World Watch has been sending cardboard cookers to refugees in Chad for over two years, and instructions for DIY cookers have been online even longer. So what gives? Why did the Kyoto Box win over more original ideas?
Also, I'd like to include in this article a comment from Shannon Carr-Shand (Forum for the Future) stating as follows:
"There have been a few posts pointing out that the solar-powered oven is not a new idea. The point of the competition was not to reward a eureka moment but to help an innovative approach to climate change reach the market. As Kyoto Energy founder and competition-winner Jon Bøhmer acknowledges in his company literature and on his application, the concept of solar cooking has been around since the eighteenth century. There are other versions of solar cookers available on the web and there are also detailed explanations of how to make a version of a similar device. What distinguishes this approach is that the cooker will be mass-produced cheaply in existing factories, the finished item is to be flat-packed for bulk transportation to end users and is extremely cheap at $6. The $75,000 prize money is going to enable Kyoto Energy to test durable, plastic versions of the cooker with 10,000 people currently burning fossil fuels to clean their water and heat their food. The expert judges and the thousands of members of the public who voted for the Kyoto Box agreed that this simple idea offered the best opportunity amongst the five short-listed ideas for an innovation to help tackle climate change on a big scale. Please see the press release and our site for more information on the competition and its objectives."
