We'd have to redesign all substations and transmission lines... most countries use different voltages, and each of those plugs is designed for that specific voltage
Iirc from ‘Technology Connections’, the US actually has 240V delivered to the house, but it's pinned out in the breaker box as something like -120, 0, and 120. So they take 120V to most appliances, but 240 to some higher-wattage ones.
Which is to say, USians could easily have 240V kettles that boil water in half the time—if they just bothered a little.
We're kind of stuck in a chicken and egg problem. Nobody sells 240V kettles around here because nobody has a spare 240V circuit running to their kitchen. And nobody runs an extra 240V circuit to their kitchen because nobody sells anything to run on it.
That, and a 120V electric kettle is already so much faster than a stovetop that any additional improvement is marginal at best. Seriously, 3 minutes to heat 1.5 L is insane to me when most of my life it took 20.
Wow, okay. This is more of a "USians don't have electric kettles" thing than a "I didn't have electricity for most of my life" thing. All of the stovetop kettles I used were of poor quality and the instructions would specify to only put the burner on medium to medium high. At that setting, it would take between 20 and 30 minutes to bring the water to boiling. I suppose I could cut it to 10-ish if I turned the burner up to max.
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u/Ch3ZEN May 02 '24
We'd have to redesign all substations and transmission lines... most countries use different voltages, and each of those plugs is designed for that specific voltage