Thursday, April 4, 2013


Energy efficient rice cooking... the answer might surprise you!

Our son Ty did an experiment for his school science fair on energy efficiency of different techniques for cooking brown rice. I had no idea how inefficient rice cookers were!! Our rice cooker ran at a constant maximum wattage until rice was done (no simmering on lower heat!). This used just under 300 watt-hours to cook 350 mL of rice. He compared it to cooking as per directions (bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer). This used only 170 watt-hours. And then the same thing, but turning off the heat after boiling and wrapping the pot in an old wool sweater (down to 100 watt-hours). Finally, there's 'zero electricity' option of a solar oven...

See the graph below for results.




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