Landscape Architect Articles

$75K Prize for $6 Cardboard Box04-17-09 | News

$75K Prize for $6 Cardboard Box

Jon Boehmer has invented a cheap, solar-powered cardboard cooker for rural Africa called the Kyoto Box. This invention can apparently help prevent two tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per family per year. It consists of two cardboard boxes with an acrylic cover. This allows the sun?EUR??,,????'?????<

A $6 cardboard box that uses a solar power to cook food, sterilize water and could help 3 billion poor people cut greenhouse gases, has won a $75,000 prize for ideas to fight global warming. The ?EUR??,,????'?????<

The FT Climate Change Challenge was backed by the Financial Times, technology group Hewlett-Packard, which sponsored the award, and development group Forum for the Future.

The other four finalists were a garlic-based feed additive to cut methane emissions from livestock, an indoor cooling system using hollow tiles, a cover for truck wheels to reduce fuel use and a ?EUR??,,????'?????<

A statement said that Boehmer would carry out trials in 10 countries, including South Africa, India and Indonesia. He would then collect data to back an application for carbon credits. The United Nations is discussing giving credits to developing countries that preserve tropical forests, which soak up carbon as they grow. Those credits could then be traded.

Many countries are looking for cheap green ways to stimulate economies mired in recession. More than 190 nations have agreed to work out a new U.N. climate pact to succeed Kyoto at a meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009.