Prior to the 20th century, virtually all families around the world cooked their food with fuel wood. In the 21st century, between one-third and one-half of the world's population continues to do so. Trees are, of course, renewable. Sadly, the level of their exploitation is no longer sustainable. In the near treeless landscapes of some 30-50 nations, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) admits there is "fuelwood famine”. Given those circumstances, the past decades have seen a major movement to improve the efficiency of wood stoves. . Other factors important factors driving the increased interest in alternative domestic energy sources include:

• Socio-economic factors: Using wood as fuel requires 2-9 hours of daily work, depending on availability. It accounts for at least 15-20% of family incomes in developing countries.
• Health and gender issues: Pollution from woodfires results in significant increases in disease burdens such as severe obstructive lung disease and respiratory infections, asthma, premature death, low birth weight, lung cancer, as well as increases from injuries such as burns. The main groups affected are poor women and children who spend large amounts of time in poorly ventilated kitchens in rural areas and urban slums.
• Environmental degradation: The unsustainable use of fire wood as fuel leads to environmental degradation including deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and desertification.

To address these challenges, SHE, Inc. and FMCN jointly designed a state of the art affordable solar oven based on the panel reflector invented by the French physicist Roger Bernard. This has been named the HotPot. While relatively inexpensive, the HotPot is larger, more durable, more efficient and easier to use, and has great commercial appeal. The HotPot can cook three to four liter pot of food with the sun’s free energy.
The concept is elegant: A black steel pot is suspended by its flange inside a transparent tempered glass bowl with 1/2” of air space between the two. The pot has a tight-fitting transparent tempered glass lid. Surrounding the pot is a reflector. It is collapsible for easy carrying and storage. Two versions of reflector are available, one made of aluminized cardboard, and a more costly one made of 0.20 gage highly reflective aluminum sheet (Morningstar). Direct and indirect solar energy penetrates the transparent glass, strikes the pot and converts it to heat. The heat is retained around the pot by the glass bowl, achieving cooking temperatures. The HotPot will bring a liter of water to boil in 90 minutes.