- CHATSWORTH, Ont. -- When
Ontario plunged into its power blackout last Aug. 14, Trish Marut was out
on her back porch cooking dinner.While millions of other residents quickly
found out that afternoon how dependent their lives are on electricity,
Marut's dinner preparations proceeded without interruption.
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- That's because she was cooking with solar power, using
a mirror-like concave dish of her own design that is so efficient at concentrating
sunlight it can handily replace a stove, barbeque or campfire. When the
blackout struck, the sun was shining and Marut had everything she needed
to prepare a hot dinner off the grid.
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- This year, as the sun rises higher in the sky every day,
Marut is in her element, touting to a visitor the joys of cooking with
sunlight. She's dubbed her concave dish the "Solar Sizzler,"
and is marketing it to cottagers, campers and backpackers, and anyone with
an interest in the environment who wants to reduce energy consumption.
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- Among its virtues is the fact that there is no pollution,
and better yet, no cost for fuel.
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- "You're cooking for free," Marut says. "Basically,
as long as there is sunshine, it will work."
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- The dish is stunningly simple. It is made of 10 pieces
of easy-to-assemble hard plastic that have been coating with reflective
aluminum embossed with plastic to keep it shiny. When assembled, the sizzler
is about a metre in diameter, about 10 centimetres deep, and weighs about
1.5 kilograms.
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- With its shiny reflective surface, the sizzler looks
like a satellite dish or a 1950s-style UFO. Marut said she wanted her solar
cooker to be both functional and elegant. "I wanted to make something
durable, lightweight, easy to take apart, and extremely pretty too."
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- For Canadians used to thinking the country is too far
north and too cold to provide enough sunshine for solar cooking, the dish
in operation is an eye-opener. On a recent sunny afternoon, it was only
7 degrees outside, but Marut was running two of her sizzlers.
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- Over the course of an hour, and without any apparent
difficulty, she boiled a pot of pasta, heated a spaghetti sauce, and cooked
sausages and chicken breasts.
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- She says she often pre-cooks greasy food out of doors
using sunlight, to keep the cooking smells out of her house. She has used
her sizzler for everything from stews to making tomato sauces from scratch,
and often has it operating while she is gardening nearby.
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- The dish begins working the moment it is pointed at the
sun, and operates as quickly as a gas-fired element -- and certainly faster
than an electric stove.
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- The principle is simple. Scientists have calculated that
bright sun directly overhead is depositing up to 1,000 watts of energy
on each square metre of surface area. The Solar Sizzler reflects this energy
into a single point, known as the focal point. Place a cooking utensil
at the focal point, located about three quarters of a metre above the sizzler,
and you're harvesting energy from the sun.
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- The sizzler in action works like a reverse magnifying
glass, and like a magnifying glass, has intense energy. To show just how
intense, a cedar log was placed in front of the solar dish. It instantly
caught flame. Yet the surface of the dish remains cool because it is reflecting
almost all of its energy.
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- Marut says there is enough sunlight to use the sizzler
year round in the southern parts of Canada, and for skeptics, she has a
video of it being used in winter surrounded by snow.
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- The former French teacher hit on the idea of using solar
energy for cooking while camping three years ago in Wyoming, where the
sun shone brilliantly almost every day.
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- Marut thought it was a waste to constantly have to buy
propane or use wood for cooking, and thought there must be a better way.
That curiosity led her to develop the Solar Sizzler, which she is marketing
by email for $69.95.
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- "It's not for everyone, but I hope cottagers and
campers can see the advantages," she says.
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- Currently Marut is selling only the sizzler through her
website, solarsizzler.com. She leaves mounting it and improvising a cooking
surface to the creativity of buyers. She mounts her sizzlers on camera
tripods, but basically anything, even a chair, that can prop up the device
and angle it at the sun can be used.
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- Buyers also have to provide a support for their pot or
frying pan, Marut has used flower pot hangers, coat hangers, and even an
aluminum tent frame to support her cooking gear in the focal point.
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- She says that with increasing concerns over energy, where
the grid can go off at any moment and pollution is a top-of-mind concern,
everyone should have a backup.
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- "If everybody had one of these around the house...
we'd have an alternative means of cooking," she said.
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