15 June

It takes twice as long to boil an electric jug in the US, because they use a 110V mains supply to homes. Even longer in Japan, which uses 100V. The reason is interesting. Edison was the early inventor of mass electricity distribution in the US, and it was DC, at 110V. By the time much of the country was built out to that standard it was too expensive to upgrade it to 220/240V, with the introduction of AC power. The same sort of challenge we see now in the transition to renewables. Enormous amount of old fossil fuel infrastructure, everywhere, that is very expensive to upgrade. But the ROI is enormous too, and will prevail.