Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Designing a Low Cost Solar Oven for Rural Native American Communities
EPA Grant Number: SU835335Title: Designing a Low Cost Solar Oven for Rural Native American Communities
Investigators: Abaraji, Casmir , Carron, Alice , Boyd, Annessa , Coan, Geraldine , Jones, Gibson , Loius, Hondo , Chapa, Joe , Begay, Katherine , Large, Menell , Nizhoni, Nelson , Manning, Ryan , Large, Shardick , Sam, Tamara
Institution: Navajo Technical College
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2012 through August 14, 2013
Project Amount: $15,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2012) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
This proposal addresses the need to increase the number of Native Americans who pursue and excel in advanced courses and careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects. Our overarching goal is to design safe, convenient, and effective energy saving solar ovens utilizing affordable materials that are readily accessible to rural populations residing on and around Native American Indian reservations at minimum cost. The Navajo Nation is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction covering 27,425 square miles across Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. As of July, 2011 there were 300,048, enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. The poverty rate for American Indians is the highest among the country’s five racial and ethnic groups. Over 51% of the Navajo’s living on the Navajo Nation live in poverty, compared to 13% of all Americans. According to the Navajo Nation Department of Economic Development, of the 68,744 housing units located on the reservation, there are 31.9% homes without plumbing, 18,000 Navajo homes without electricity, and only 13,447 have complete kitchen facilities. For these impoverished indigenous Americans, solar ovens represent an affordable means of cooking and sterilization. We propose to utilize clean technology to design a cost-efficient, user-friendly solar cooking device that harnesses renewable energy sources, dramatically reduces the use of natural resources, cuts emissions and wastes, and provides a means for Native Americans that are living without kitchen facilities to cook food at little to no cost.
Navajo Technical College (NTC) is a Tribal College (TCU) located on the reservation in Crownpoint, New Mexico. Despite all of the hardships associated with being located in a region of abject poverty, NTC was recognized by the Aspen Institute as one of America’s top educational institutions when it was awarded a 2011 Award for Community College Excellence. NTC is in the process of becoming a University offering two year degrees in accounting, automotive technology, carpentry, computer-aided drafting, construction technology, electrical trades, environmental science, nursing; and baccalaureate degrees in Information Technology with tracks in Computer Science, New Media, Digital Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering, and Geospatial Information Technology. We will be one of the first tribal colleges to offer 4-year degrees in multiple Engineering tracks.
The “Designing a Low Cost Solar Oven for Rural Native American Communities” project, which originated in NTC’s Culinary School, has now expanded to a larger, multi-disciplinary focus, as students in the Engineering department investigate other solar appliances such as solar dehydrators, wind generators and turbines; students in Environmental Science have initiated a micro-intensive gardening project; and trade class students have assisted the culinary arts students with building the solar appliances. Findings from Phase I were used to develop a baseline for research, construction, and evaluation of solar cook stoves on the reservation. Phase
II funding will enable students and faculty to delve further into the question: How can we improve our Solar Appliances Project, and to take their research learning’s into competitions such as SKILLS USA and AIHEC. We are also organizing and implementing Solar Energy Symposiums where multiple experts can give workshops and presentations for students and staff to share their findings. Phase II funding will also enable NTC to continue to develop student- generated, faculty-guided research projects where students will be involved in the design, implementation, and reporting of the cross-disciplinary projects, while enabling tribal students to further develop the prototype solar oven that was developed under this award. Funding will enable NTC to further advance the competency of Navajo students in STEM subjects so that they are equipped to meet current industry workforce needs in STEM fields.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
The overarching goal of this project was to design safe, convenient, energy saving solar ovens utilizing affordable (i.e. familiar, no cost) materials that are readily accessible to rural populations residing on and around American Indian reservations. Through this grant, NTC has engaged Navajo students, faculty, and “k- grey” reservation-based community members in hands-on, experiential learning as they designed, developed, demonstrated, and used safe, inexpensive, energy-efficient solar cookers. These solar ovens differ from other prototypes being developed by mainstream universities and developers of solar appliances in that all of the materials that we are working with are those that can be easily accessed by the approximately 18,000 underserved households that are living on the Navajo Nation reservation without kitchen facilities in their homes.
We began with the question “The cost has risen so much for firewood for Navajo elders, why don’t we use solar for heating? We certainly have a lot of sun.” A Navajo Chapter House member asked, “Do you think Navajos on the reservation would adapt to solar cooking? Couldn’t this help us meet the rising cost of firewood?” Searching for information about solar cooking, students discovered they are used in refugee camps around the world where no wood is available. Like on our reservation, children are spending all day gathering enough wood to cook a meal. Families suffer lung and eye problems from cooking on polluting indoor stoves. The Navajo people have a huge history of adapting to survive. Even if we don’t use solar cook stoves for every meal they can provide emergency relief when we run out of wood and roads are closed for weeks due to weather when wood can’t get it hauled in.
Our original proposal design and supplies list incorporated the use of Fresnel lenses. This is because our initial investigation of prevailing research indicated Fresnel lenses to be a preferable material because they seemed to be readily available for purchase online and they allowed for a substantial reduction in thickness (and thus mass and volume of overall weight). We considered using thin and flat, almost flexible lenses, with thicknesses in the 1 to 5 mm (0.039 to 0.20 in) range. Many solar oven design websites advocate the use of Fresnel lenses as an application in solar energy because Fresnel lenses can concentrate sunlight (with a ratio of almost 500:1) onto solar cells. The active solar-cell surface “can be reduced to a fraction compared to conventional solar modules… offer[ing] a considerable cost-saving potential by low material consumption ... which achieve a very high efficiency under concentration due to thermodynamic effects. [1]
Fresnel lenses are being incorporated into the next-generation of many solar thermal-energy systems by mainstream populations. However, during our building phase we discovered that “cheap Fresnel lenses” that can be stamped or molded of transparent plastic, such as those used in overhead projectors and magnifying glasses, are not so cheap and not so readily available to those living on very limited incomes without internet services. We experimented with three types of cookers work, determining how easy it is to use them and how durable they were. One type with two pieces of foil covered cardboard folded flat for easy lightweight storage, perfect for an emergency kit or to take on horseback while herding sheep. People wanted to try to use the cooker so they could save money on firewood, which costs up to $150 a load, way over most people’s income, and it is tough to find people to deliver wood to very remote reservation homes.
Solar oven demos occurred in Many Farms, Arizona, with +40 mph winds on sandy land that is barren for miles. Residents braved the windstorms tending cookers. The metal reflectors folded flat across a durable plastic cooking box, and snapped down securely. While exploring the prototype someone asked if he could possibly make a cooker from old TV dishes found all around the reservation. This prompted us to pursue revamping our design to exclude designing ovens that require the purchase of new materials, and to focus on developing a truly no-cost solar cooker built from the discarded materials found in dumps and trash heaps that our community members have ready access to.
Due to our isolated conditions, getting feedback from the reservation is always a challenge. We have reports from about 1/3 of the demonstrators. An unexpected outcome is discovering that people may not use the cookers as much in winter as they do in summer. Many Navajo’s have always cooked outside in the summer to avoid heating up their homes that bake under summer’s sun with no shade from trees or awnings. So cooking outdoors in summer is not an adaptation, they’ve been doing this all their lives
As a result of these Phase I findings we have determined that the following changes could improve our current solar cooker: Cookers need to get hot enough to boil and fry quickly, they need to accommodate larger pots because more than one pot of food is useful to large families (people are requesting cookers that can hold two pots, so they could cook an entire meal using solar), they need to be designed to readily cook in high wind, they would benefit from a mechanical or solar powered mechanism that turns them once an hour to keep them sun focused instead of relying upon a person to turn them, the reflective surfaces need to be made of more durable material that doesn’t scratch as easily (like the material used in rooftop solar panels), the box should have a carry handle so it is very portable, and solar cookers need to be made from cheaper materials.
Conclusions:
This is the first EPA grant that our tribal college has engaged in, and it has proven to be extremely relevant to our community members. Based on the surveys and interviews with students and their families, students report that this project has motivated them to stay in school and be successful in their college experience for the following reasons:
- They were given the opportunity to develop and implement projects that made a difference in the lives of their families and themselves while honoring traditional cultural values.
- Collaboration and support from peers and faculty participating in this outside the classroom activity inspired students to dedicate themselves to their classroom studies.
- Distances between our communities is vast, the reservation is larger than the state of West Virginia. Financial constraints significantly impact the ability of Navajo students to participate in many outside the classroom activities. Funding from this program supported students’ ability to participate in a project that provided visible positive impacts to their communities. Students reported that this EPA project motivated them because it allowed them the opportunity to give back to their community.
The successful development, implementation, and evaluation of this Phase I EPA grant has resulted in a strong reputation towards the EPA that is inspiring us to pursue future EPA grant activities. Prior to this grant we were hesitant to apply for EPA opportunities because of concerns about our ability to fulfill all of the requirements associated with an award. We did in fact encounter some unique challenges including experiencing a total blackout of all internet, phone lines, and even no running water across the reservation the week the proposals were due (due to severe weather conditions at 65+ mile an hour winds and temperatures at -19 below freezing), and our unpaved mountain roadways being impassable. Many Americans do not understand our third world conditions on the reservation. I drove over 100 miles each way in severe weather to get to a phone and thankfully was able to communicate with EPA program managers. They suggested I send the proposal via thumb drive, yet something as seemingly simple as that was about as easily achieved as asking someone to land on the moon without electricity and road access. The irony is that it is these types of daily challenges that make the pursuit of sustainable, energy/cost effective solutions to real life problems so significant within our communities.
This EPA project has generated interest in numerous additional renewable and sustainable energy projects. Students recently coordinated a Power-Point presentation on campus during a lunch hour about ethanol as a renewable fuel. There was a good crowd turnout and the Environmental Science department helped out with the organization, poster advertising, and refreshments for the presentation event. The college contributed to funding research presentations. Students traveled to Nashville, TN to attend an enlightening ethanol production workshop. One student reported “feeling something had been accomplished when everything came together smoothly at the presentation of my findings. After the presentation, I realized I had a lot of information to share that I didn’t have at the beginning of the semester a few months before. I also know there is more knowledge that I would like to acquire about renewable fuels.” Another unexpected outcome is that we have begun a recycling program that we hope to expand.
Supplemental Keywords:
American Indian, Navajo, underserved, tribal, STEM, education, solar, oven, cook stove, sustainable, energyThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.