I think the point was not that immersion heaters are inefficient in that way (i.e. in the true physical sense), but that because they cannot heat water quickly, they have to keep a large amount of water hot at all times in case it is needed. This is inefficient (not in physical sense) because the vast majority of the heat that is transferred to the water is lost to the atmosphere while the water sits around waiting to be used. Gas heaters, however, can heat water quickly (on demand), and thus no energy is being used to heat the water until it is required.
Re:Free as what? cool as what?
on
Debian GNU/Solaris
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· Score: 2, Informative
Dunno about this specifically, but Solaris has been freely available for developers since I was a student, at least 5 years. Hell, they even posted me the CDs. Still is, by the looks of things.
I am British.
Actually, according to the OED (whose judgement I trust), bastardize is the preferred spelling. It is a common misconception that -ize is the American spelling. It is actually the difference between words coming to English direct from the Greek (-ize) or via French (-ise). Since, originally, the words all came from Greek anyway, it was decided to standardize and use -ize throughout.
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I think the point was not that immersion heaters are inefficient in that way (i.e. in the true physical sense), but that because they cannot heat water quickly, they have to keep a large amount of water hot at all times in case it is needed. This is inefficient (not in physical sense) because the vast majority of the heat that is transferred to the water is lost to the atmosphere while the water sits around waiting to be used. Gas heaters, however, can heat water quickly (on demand), and thus no energy is being used to heat the water until it is required.
Dunno about this specifically, but Solaris has been freely available for developers since I was a student, at least 5 years. Hell, they even posted me the CDs. Still is, by the looks of things.
I am British.
Actually, according to the OED (whose judgement I trust), bastardize is the preferred spelling. It is a common misconception that -ize is the American spelling. It is actually the difference between words coming to English direct from the Greek (-ize) or via French (-ise). Since, originally, the words all came from Greek anyway, it was decided to standardize and use -ize throughout.