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A $6 cardboard box that uses solar power to cook food, sterilise water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming.
Organised by Forum for the Future, the competition aims to support concepts that have "moved off the drawing board and demonstrated their feasibility" for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but have not gained corporate backing.
The "Kyoto Box", named after the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol that seeks to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, is aimed at billions of people who use firewood to cook.
It is made from two cardboard boxes, which use reflective foil and black paint to maximise absorption of solar energy.
Covering the cooking pot with a transparent cover retains heat and water, and temperatures inside the pot can reach at least 80℃.
"The Kyoto Box has the potential to transform millions of lives and is a model of scalable, sustainable innovation." said Peter Madden, the forum's chief executive.
" A lot of scientists are working on ways to send people to Mars. I was looking for something a little more grassroots, a little simpler. We're saving lives and saving trees." the Kyoto Box's developer Jon Boehmer, a Norwegian based in Kenya, said in a statement.
Boehmer's contest win notwithstanding, solar cooking with a cardboard oven isn't new. Two American women, Barbara Kerr and Sherry Cole, were the solar box cooker's first serious promoters in the 1970s. They and others joined forces to create the non-profit Solar Cookers International in 1987.
The other four finalists were a garlic-based feed additive to cut methane emissions from livestock, an indoor cooling system using hollow tiles, a cover for truck wheels to reduce fuel use and a "giant industrial microwave" for creating charcoal. A statement said that Boehmer would carry out trials in 10 countries, including South Africa, India and Indonesia. He would then collect data to back an application for carbon credits. Reuters
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