alt Hacker NewsElectrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine.
For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power. Good luck wiring that into your apartment, or feeding this with local solar. Or even finding an induction stovetop that won't melt its insides in a year or two at a measly 5KW.
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Gas has more raw power but it's extremely inefficient because most of it just escapes into the room, whereas with induction it all goes into the cookware. Our induction stove boils water way faster than our gas one did, and the gas one on full blast melted and ruined the handle on the pot since so much of the heat escapes around the sides.
Technology Connections on YouTube has done videos on the topic, comparing electric to gas, showing that even old-school resistive electric is faster than gas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y
Something doesn’t make sense here because an electric kettle operating at 120v at less than 10 amps will boil water much faster than the large burner on my stove.
50% of a gas burner's power goes into the air.
Every test done comparing residential gas vs induction burners has shown induction burners heat up pots and pans faster than gas.
Induction puts ~98% of the energy right into your pan. (Based on how losses are measured, some say 90%, whatever, it is way more than 50%!)
> Electrical is inadequate power delivery-wise and requires completely different cookware to the point that it's a different cuisine.
There are Chinese induction wok cooktops that have a curved bottom so a wok fits in and can be heated up all around. Sadly the ones sold here in the states are just 120v, really wish I could get my kitchen stove equipped with one of those running at full power. Though honestly even 240v is limiting.
I can personally guarantee you that the average Japanese コンロ does not have a heat output that would require 15kW of power to match using IH.
And that’s before we get into the safety features of modern ones that bring that limit even lower.
Most Japanese household stoves top out at 5kW per burner. IH stoves are limited to 3kW per burner for 5.8kW combined by radio regulations. 15kW is a figure for combined output or for restaurant burners.
It's apparently not great but not substantially worse either, and it's not like 5kW output of gas stoves are plenty for serious cooking in the first place so it's okay.
Most heat from gas burners is wasted heating the room. Induction is vastly more efficient.
> For example to replicate a gas burner you have to have above 15KW continious power.
Where are you getting this from? 15K BTU sure, but 15K watts? Do you mean the entire stove?
https://www.impulselabs.com/ achieves this by storing energy in a battery. 120V15A in to charge, 10kW out for short durations. I don't have one, but it's an interesting concept.
That said, I don't know what's better, a massive lithium battery in the kitchen that can be set into thermal runaway, or a gas line.
But also, most Japanese styles of cooking doesn't need those levels of power anyway. 4-5kW induction hobs running on a proper 240V outlet or whatever the Japanese industrial equivalent is are usually plenty for most professional cooking.