constructed a 3- by 3.7-m building using water basins as the actual roofing material. During thesummer, a slab of foam insulation was rolled back at night, and the water wouldbecome cold through the night sky evaporation. Since the water supply satdirectly on a metal ceiling, it absorbed the heat from the room and kept thebuilding air-conditioned all day. During the winter, the movable insulation wasrolled back in the daytime which allowed for it to collect heat. This generatedenough heat into the house through the ceiling at night to keep the roomcomfortable (McDaniels 179-181).Then there was the solar cooker. Developed by Augustin Mouchot in Franceand by John Ericsson in the United States in the nineteenth century. They wantedto develop a solar cooker that not only reached high temperatures, but also was tobe used as a means of heat storage enabling food to be cooked after sundown. Mouchot built a solar steam engine that operated a printing press in Paris in1882. In the United States, John Ericsson invented what he called theEricsson-cycle which was a hot-air engine for the making of solar heat. Thesuns rays would be concentrated with the use of a parabolic reflector, which wasdesigned to track the sun across the sky in order to keep a constant power output.(McPhillips 86-89)There was also the solar oven. In 1837, and astronomer from Englandnamed John Fredrick Herschel introduced to the world a solar oven. He built asmall solar oven while on a trip to Africas Cape of Good Hope. He constructed itas a mahogany, painted it black and buried it in the sand for purposes ofinsulation. a doubled-glazed cover, which was the only portion of the oven leftexposed, serve to limit heat losses through the top, while at the same time, lettingin sunlight. The maximum temperature of the oven was of about 240 degree Fand it was used throughout his expedition by him and his staff to cook both meatand vegetables (Regino 5).Not all solar ener...
