Changes: Japan

Revision as of 03:48, 5 August 2008

Recent News and Developments

Spring 2007: Solar Cooker Challenge for Africa is the name of a proposed project by an NGO in Japan called Solar Cooker Japan (SCJ). Its goals are to promote the planting of the Jatropha trees while also promoting solar cooking using a new prototype: the Balloon Solar Cooker by Mr. Toshi Omhura, one of the founders of SCJ. Mr. Kazimito was in Nairobi, Kenya recently, holding preliminary discussions with Solar Cookers International East Africa Office Director Margaret Owino about a partnership. A team from SCJ later followed with the prototype cookers for field tests in Kenya. SCI (EA) welcomes this new development and will conduct field tests on the new cookers on behalf of SCJ. Their goal is to enable in-country production of the same cookers, should they pass the field test.

The History of Solar Cooking in Japan

A Clean Energy Utilization Research Study Group was established in Japan in 1994 to organize activities for a range of environmental initiatives in that country. A Solar Energy Festival is held annually in the north of Japan; the Solar Energy Society's International Symposium was held in the country in 1992. Most Japanese people are not interested in solar cooking for themselves, as they use gas or electricity for cooking and find that to be satisfactory. But many view solar cooking as an opportunity to teach people about larger energy issues. A book on Solar Cooking, "Cooking by the Sun" was published in Japanese in 1995, edited by members of the group, and several types of cookers are manufactured in Japan, largely for learning more about the technology and for additional research.

Japan has one particularly faithful solar cook, however. Her name is Yasuko Torii, and she has invented a number of cookers that she displayed at several world conferences. One was a very small box cooker, the other a larger version made of an aluminum product used in Japan as a drip pan for ovens. She has been an active promoter of solar cooking for over ten years. She had recently created a solar cooking mailing list for the country, with most of the individuals living in Tokyo.

Recently, an announcement was made about the manufacture in Japan of a household size parabolic for sale in the Japanese market. The device is a dish reflector, mounted on a tripod. One other related commercial product manufactured is a stainless steel, well insulated hay box made by Toyota, and sold in various nations of the world. Both devices are expensive and not well suited therefore for poor countries, but could be marketed to middle class audiences in Asia, Europe, and North America.

[Information for this section was taken originally from State of the Art of Solar Cooking by Dr. Barbara Knudson]

Climate, Culture, and Special Considerations

Documents

Reports

Articles in the media

Diva’s magical melody for the environment - Kenya Times

Web pages

Contacts

A complete list of NGOs and individuals working in Japan is available in the International Directory of Solar Cooking Promotors.

NGOs based in or working in the Japan

Individuals

Paul Munsen

@@ Line 25: / Line 25: @@
 ===Web pages===
 * [http://solarcooking.org/japanese/solarcooking-faq-ja.html Frequently-Asked Questions "Japanese"]
+* [http://w2.avis.ne.jp/~amane/ ソーラークッカーのサイトです]
 ==Contacts==