Solar cookers and pans are being given to 1000 rural families in the
Banda Aceh region of Indonesia by the international Alcan group in
partnership with Klimaschutz, a German non-governmental organization
dedicated to climate protection and energy-saving. The gift is part of
a €450,000 ($586,000, £295,000) contribution by the two organizations
to a ‘clean development mechanism’ environmental project.
The innovative solar cooker uses energy from the sun to boil water,
killing bacteria as well as cooking food. At the same time it reduces
reliance on dwindling energy sources such as firewood and fossil fuels.
Clean development mechanisms are recommended by the Kyoto Protocol as
methods of protecting the global climate in a sustainable way. They are
also endorsed by the protocol because they are environmental techniques
brought by industrial nations to developing countries. The Indonesian
project in which Alcan is involved is registered by the United Nations
climate office.
Peter Hutsch, managing director at Alcan’s German mill where the cooker
reflectors are made, said: ‘By substituting traditional sources of
energy like firewood and fossil fuels with the solar cooker, we
estimate that this project will annually save 3500 tons of carbon
dioxide equivalent emissions.’
About 20,000 of the cookers are in use worldwide and many have been
installed to provide clean water to the survivors of the tsunami that
hit south-east Asia in December 2004. However, 220 million solar
cookers are estimated to be needed to cut significantly the dependence
of developing countries on traditional fuel sources. This number would
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 700 and 800 million tons a
year.
