I just want to comment on colors of wires and terms use for wiring for different voltages.
Red and black are typically for low voltages, such as 12 volts in your vehicles. Red is positive, and black is negative. Vehicles use the body as the ground, so make sure you don't touch the red to black or red to the the body, or red to anything that is grounded.
In higher voltages such as 120 (110-125) volts, there are three colors used for these types of projects. Black, white, and green. You might not even see a green wire, so don't worry for a hood project.
The white wire is called neutral, the black wire is hot, and the green wire is ground. In your breaker or fuse box, the ground is tied to an ~8' copper clad rod driven into the ground near the meter.
The green wire (in modern wiring) is a safety and is tied from the ground rod at the meter to wiring boxes and chassis of equipment such as a VCR, TV or a stereo.
The black wire is wired to the incoming hot wire being fed to the building, through the breakers or fuses, and on to the circuits in the building.
The white wire is connected to the incoming neutral, and the neutral of the circuits. The difference compared to the black is all of these neutrals are tied to a single block, and the block is connected to ground. The green wire. Yes, I said connected to ground. The reason this works is the hot swings from 120 volts positive to 120volts negative. The white wire is just a reference.
This tidbit isn't relative to this project, but this happens 50 or 60 times a second, depending on where you live while 60 is North America. Don't worry about this fact for now.
A safe rule for wiring is to make sure yourself that everything is unplugged. Don't ask your little brother, girlfriend, mom, etc if it's unplugged. Make sure yourself no matter what the inconveniece. It's better than dead.
A simple rule for connections is white to white, black to black, green to green. No white on green, and guess what? No green on white! If you do black on white or green you could start a fire. Most likely you will pop a breaker whether it's on the nice GFI you are using, on the power strip, or at the breaker box itself.
When you wire in a switch, be sure it is inline with the black, meaning the black wire goes to the one terminal on the switch, and then all of the appliances (lights, etc) are attached to the other terminal of the switch. It is not advisable to switch the neutral, since all wiring and appliances would be energized even if the switch is off. Not safe at all.
The white can be directly wired to the whites in the appliances. The ground can be directly wired to the ground screw on the hood if you have a grounded hood or grounded whatever you are working on.
Remember as Orion said: "t is not up to the staff or anyone inparticular on this board to verify the saftey or usefullness of any threads listed under the DIY section. It is up to the individual to try anything at their own risk."
If you do not feel comfortable working with electricity, then don't. You will have to pay more, or go without, but that's life. It's better than dead.
As far as the speaker wire goes, yes it can handle the voltage and amperage, the insulation should be sufficient, but it's not safe normally due to the colors and markings not being common in that type of wiring. Will it work in this project? Yeah, it will. It's a small job and can hopefully be traced easily without compromising safety.
For my credentials, I am an Extra class amateur radio operator. To be licensed, you have a good understanding of electricity since we build and work on radios with two or three thousand volts, and some with more voltage than that.