• blx@lemmy.zip
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    6 months ago

    Resistive heating inefficient? What is the energy wasted as, if not heat?

    • socksy
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      6 months ago

      don’t the coils glow slightly? I guess light would be mostly wasted energy, no?

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      6 months ago

      Yes all the energy goes into being heat but you have to put a lot of energy into the wire before it heats up. Microwaves barely use any energy in fact it takes more power to run the little clock than the microwave itself.

      • Constant Pain@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        That’s insanely untrue. Microwaves are power hogs up to a 1000 watts or more in some cases. The difference is the heat transmission method. The conduction of heat in a kettle is pretty slow because it forces the heat to propagate through water via convection, which is slower, while the radiation of a microwave antenna distributes the energy more evenly and faster. Consumption is mostly on par but energy transfer differs.