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By: Thomas Yoon
In my previous articles, I have discussed many ways to
save fuel for your vehicle. I have mentioned steps like
adopting good driving habits, maintaining your car in peak
condition, planning your trips, carpooling, avoiding traffic
jams, driving smaller vehicles, choosing more efficient
cars, adding energy saving devices and many others.
By following some of the items listed above, you should
be able to get a very good performance from the fuel you
fill up into your tank and save on your vehicle fuel costs.
Today, we are going to discuss more ways of saving fuel,
but this time in our kitchens. Saving cooking gas requires
a different approach from saving vehicle fuel. This is because
the gas stove uses external burning of fuel, unlike engines
that uses internal combustion of fuel.
Gas fuel like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or natural
gas (Methane) is commonly used for cooking at home because
it is clean and easily available. If we are able to control
the usage, we could possibly save considerable amounts of
money too.
With the world's oil and gas prices at such a high level,
many of us are hard-pressed to try to squeeze the maximum
work out of the fuel we use. One of the best strategies
to use is to avoid wastage that can lead to loss of energy.
Below are some of the ways you can save gas in the kitchen:
1. Light up your stove only when you are ready to cook
and the ingredients are within reach. This requires good
coordination and planning by the cook. This means that heat
is not wasted during the waiting period. The flame is only
used for doing useful work - heating the food.
2. Use pressure cookers because they require less fuel
for heating and thus reduce cooking time. There is a scientific
explanation for this. Water boils at 100 degree Celsius
at normal atmospheric pressures. When the cooking pot is
pressurized above atmospheric, the water boils at a higher
temperature. At that higher temperature, whatever meat or
other ingredients inside the pot get cooked faster.
3. Avoid using too much water when cooking as it wastes
fuel and it takes a longer time to evaporate. Water boils
at 100 degree Celsius in a normal pot. It remains at this
temperature no matter how much more you heat it further.
It just evaporates, and the heat is lost through the evaporation
of the steam. The temperature will not rise further in the
water. The more water there is, the more the fuel required
to bring it to boil.
4. Reduce the flame when boiling starts to save fuel. This
relates to item 3 above. A small flame is sufficient to
maintain the boiling of the water at 100 degree Celsius.
A big flame will not bring the water to a higher temperature.
5. Cover cooking pots and pans with a lid to prevent heat
from evaporating. This again relates to item 3 above. By
covering the pot with a lid, the energy supplied to the
water is prevented from being lost through evaporation of
the steam. In fact, the useful energy contained in the steam
is utilized and transferred to cook the food.
6. Use a small burner as it consumes 6% to 10% less gas
than a big burner. To be efficient, as much of the heat
from a flame must be transmitted to the pot. With a big
flame below a relatively small pot, the hot gases flowing
along the sides of the pot has less chance of being extracted.
Only hot gases in contact with the pot have any chance of
being extracted. Any hot gases not in contact with the pot
are lost to the atmosphere.
7. Clean the burner if you see an orange, yellow or non-uniform
flame. This means there is incomplete combustion of the
fuel. Usually this is due to some obstruction in the air
or gas passages in the gas stove. Incomplete combustion
means that some of the fuel is not burnt but is deposited
as carbon. That's a waste of the total heating capacity
of the fuel.
You do not have to understand thermodynamics in order to
save fuel in your cooking stove. However, many of the strategies
outlined above is derived from the understanding of the
properties of water and steam, principles of heat transfer
like conduction, convection, radiation, combustion of fuel,
venturi and gas burner design.
For the cook in the kitchen, just remember - reduce wastage
and maintain efficiency.
About The Author
Thomas Yoon
Many years of working experience in Marine, Facilities,
Construction has given the author material for writing e-books
and articles related to engineering, and management. Subscribe
to facworld ezine by sending an email to mailto:facworld-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
More information at http://www.free-marine.com and http://www.free-engineering.com
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