Cooking, energy: microwave efficiency vs electric stovetop, part 1

Self-tutoring about efficiencies of cooking methods: the tutor compares electric stovetop with microwave cooking.

Yesterday I was looking through a microwave manual and found some interesting numbers. It draws 1500 Watts but has a cooking power of 1100 Watts. This suggests energy efficiency of 11/15 = 73%.

Interestingly, stovetop cooking with an electric burner seems more efficient than microwave cooking, perhaps by a factor of 4/3. (That’s for the case of boiling water.) If that’s true, stovetop cooking would be over 90% efficient, perhaps up to 98% efficient, potentially.

These are perhaps rough figures, but still interesting….

Source:

scientificamerican.com