this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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hmmm
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For things that are "hmmm".
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Turning electricity into heat is pretty much 100% efficient, but all the other conversions have outrageous conversion losses. Regardless, using solar is still the best option overall.
However, fossil fuels are still widely used, and that’s where the losses play a significant role. In that context, using gas to heat water is the simplest and most efficient setup. Converting the combustion products into electricity just introduces additional losses, further decreasing the overall efficiency.
Burning fossil fuels to boil water to create steam to spin turbines to generate electricity to transmit to the residential grid to power your electric kettle to boil water.
Or residential solar cells capturing sunlight to convert to electricity to power your electric kettle?
~(And don't forget that the fossil fuels were originally sunlight that was captured by plants that died and became fossil fuels that were extracted to be burned...)~