The tracking Sun Scoop, solar steaming garden soil.

I made a new type of parabolic solar cooker this year a "proof of concept" , and decided to call it the "Sun Scoop" because it is shaped like a scoop. Instead of making a parabolic dish, I made a square section of the side of the dish, roughly from the focus horizontally to the edge (just made it larger) and this means the cooking pot can be independently supported and you have easy access to it. The reflector is on "equatorial mount" so instead of "tracking" the sun, you point it at the sun, and just rotate it at 15 degrees per hour, and it stays pointed at the sun all day. I manually adjust for the seasons. I chose to steam soil as the main use because my pot is 14 liters. So I could cook enough food for me for a week in about 2.5 hours. But it actually gets around 8 hours of sunlight on a good day. So how to use the energy provided most efficiently? Steaming soil and weeds kills pests and weed seeds in the soil. In side by side tests, over 30 days, Lettuce seedlings grew 20% faster than lettuce grown in the same soil that wasn't steamed! At first steaming was really slow, and the soil and weed material at the bottom was burning. This was biochar, but it was slow. Eventually I made a cross support from wood, and put expanded metal on top, then a screen from an old pan over that, Then I filled up to the screen with water. After that, I added a layer of chopped up weeds, then a layer of sieved soil, then layers of weeds and soil till the pot was full. This worked very well. I began using a thermometer to check when it was done. The pot of soil heated up quickly as the steam and heat traveled up the sides, but the middle at the top a few cm down was the last soil to reach boiling point. After that I deemed it "steamed" then dug out the soil, topped up the water and did another batch. I probably steamed a couple of tonnes of soil this way over the summer. And it grew stuff really well. I am very pleased with how it worked out. I believe that it can be used around the world for this purpose. Especially if it is a bit bigger and people automate the soil movement with a slow worm drive pushing the soil out whenever it reaches a certain temperature. I think it would be logical to combine this use with a solar drier or dehydrator. As the soil cools off, air could be blown over the pipe that it runs through and raise the heat of the air to 50c or 60C. So anyways, I am reaching out to DIY people and Academics to get the thing more known and more developed so it can be used around the world. Thanks Brian Please check out the playlist for more details. Sunscoop youtube playlist