What about China?

The ‘What About China?’ Blog has been asked it’s first climate change question: 

Q: ‘Which uses less energy (and is therefore greener) to boil the water for my cup of tea? Boiling the kettle (electric) for one cup, or putting the pre-filled cup in the microwave?’ from RG

Thanks RG; a classic brewers conundrum…

Various governmental advisory reports, like this one from Canada, indicate that the electric kettle is most energy efficient way to make your brew. An electric kettle converts about 80% of the electricity used into energy to heat the water, while the comparable figure for a microwave is about 55%.

Besides, have you ever tried a cuppa made from microwaved water? – Urgh! Tepid and weak; microwaved water doesn’t hold heat long enough to make a decent brew. Bear in mind that both options need electricity to start with; so, to get a true picture of how ‘green’ your tea is you need to go back a few steps. If the electricity powering your appliance has been produced by a fossil fuel fired power station it is a lot more costly in terms of energy than from renewable resources. Better still to install solar hot water and use the hot water heated free by the sun to start with and save time, cost and energy! 

Let me know if you have any alternative answers or comments, 

Bethan

This entry was posted on Wednesday the 21st of May 2008 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Questions, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.