How to be green: Should I heat water in a kettle on my gas stove, in an electric kettle, or nuke it in the microwave?

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Normally I hate microwaves but there's one in my new apartment and there's NOT a kettle (or one of those electric ones). So, from the green point of view, should I keep microwaving or buy one kettle or the other?

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Sunday, 7 January 2007 13:19 (eighteen years ago)

breathe on it

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Sunday, 7 January 2007 13:23 (eighteen years ago)

i think the best way is to use an electric kettle and only boil the amount of water you need (obviously you need one with a flat metal bottom, not an old-style element). but i could be wrong.

i bought a stove-top kettle ages ago but it took 2,000,000 times longer to boil than the electric and i figured that had to be a spectacular waste of energy. indeed, turning on the stove seems to be a waste of energy compared to using a relatively small burst of 'lec to boil two cups' worth of water.

but i could be totally off the mark here.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 7 January 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

Use a kettle or gas cooktop to boil water rather than a microwave oven or electric cooktop. says Australia's guide to environmentally sustainable homes.

― Alba (Alba), Sunday, 7 January 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

Thanks!

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Sunday, 7 January 2007 14:31 (eighteen years ago)

If your electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, the gas stove might win out. Otherwise, it's a close call between an efficient electric kettle and a gas stove.

― Jaq (Jaq), Sunday, 7 January 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

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