Part 6/12:
One solution thought to be ideal is electric resistance heating—like super-sized tea kettles operating at nearly 99% efficiency. While theoretically appealing, this approach overlooks a crucial energy loss: the inefficiency in electricity generation and transmission. In the U.S., electricity costs around $90 per megawatt-hour for industry, making resistive heating prohibitively expensive and inefficient, as it wastes roughly 70% of the primary energy in converting fuel to electricity.