Many of us use open-flame cookers in our kitchens almost every day. Many of these devices work with natural gas or a mixture of more than one kind of gas such as butane, propane etc. Also, the energy efficiencies of these types of cooking equipments are very low. Thereby, a large portion of the energy produced by those devices spreads around and is wasted.
In fact, it doesn’t stop there; if the kitchen is in an air conditioned part of the house (or building), it leads to consuming more energy by increasing air conditioning cooling loads. If the area containing the open-flame cooker is not an air-conditioned space, during cooking the room temperature will increase dramatically, especially in summer season.
So, unless it is necessary we should set the cooker to low or medium heat while cooking. More important than this, the pot should be placed centered over the flame. Even with this little tip it is possible to save significant amounts of energy.
If we think about how many people are cooking every day, we can consider how much energy can be saved worldwide. Let's not forget, pots and cookers may be owned by us, but the environment and the future is not the property of our fathers.
This post was written by Sıddık S. Altunbaş who lives in Turkey and writes a green blog.
