The Donkey’s Mouth

“Kyoto Box” a breakthrough in boiling water!

// April 14th, 2009 // Current Events, Humor, Science, Technology

I just read about something called the “Kyoto Box” over at Steve Milloy’s blog.

What is it exactly?  According to an article on the BBC website:

It is made from two cardboard boxes, which use reflective foil and black paint to maximise absorption of solar energy.

Shockingly innovative!  Furthermore the BBC article claims:

The Kyoto Box is made from cardboard and can be used for sterilising water or boiling or baking food.

However:

Covering the cooking pot with a transparent cover retains heat and water, and temperatures inside the pot can reach at least 80C. (emphasis mine)

Now that’s interesting, because it seems to me that the inventor, Jon Bohmer, has done something even more radical than (re-)inventing a cheap oven, he has somehow managed to lower the boiling point of water to only 80C when it is normally 100C!  Put in that perspective, the $75,000 he received as prize money seems like a paltry sum.

Maybe we should put him to work on cold fusion.

But the most interesting thing, as Steve Milloy puts it in his blog post:

Isn’t it interesting how the purpose of the contest is to avert climate change rather than to help poor Africans lead a better life? if you’re a poor African, do you really care about atmospheric carbon dioxide and mean global temperatures 100 years from now?

Well said.