You may need to be more specific about what you mean by "electric burner." For purposes of this reply, I am assuming electric coil burner.

I just looked at AJ Madison, and scanned powers of the highest electric coil burners in ranges costing $900 and up. The highest I saw were 8" coils that consumed 2.6 kW. This is equivalent to 8900 BTU/hr.

Conversely, of course, a 16,000 BTU/hr burner consumes same power as a 4.7 kW.

I was careful to say "consumes" because I honestly do not know how the power-to-pan compares in these cases.

PS: I am confident that an induction owner will be along momentarily to give the skinny on that modality.

Thanks for the replies. I am just wondering if my electric cooktop was a gas burner what would the BTU's be.
I really haven't researched it. I don't know how many watts the largest electric burner is, or how many coils it has. Is the difference between the two just going to effect boiling water or woking? I know I am not making myself very clear. I wanted to get a better sense of the heat difference.

ok, Angie, I'll do it. But I'm an engineer in my day job, so I'm going to be geeky about it.

1 watt = 3.41214163 btu / hour

My (low-end, though that's relative when you're talking induction) induction cooktop's highest burner can max at 3600 watts, which is the same as 12284 btu/hr. (I think the btu ratings mean btu/hr, nothing else makes much sense, though I haven't actually seen that explicitly defined anywhere). Your electric stove may have a different rating, so you would need to know what that is to even start to compare.

But like Angie said, this is only a measure of the power drawn, not the power transferred to your pan. You have to know the efficiency of your burner to figure out how much power is actually going to heat up your pan. If your theoretical 16,000 btu burner is 70% efficient, then 11,200 btu/hr get to your pan. If it's 80% efficient, your pan sees 12,800 BTU/hr. In real life, there are all kinds of things that will effect efficiency (size of your pan to size of burner, certainly. room temperature of your kitchen, maybe. etc), but any given piece of equipment will have a theoretical maximum efficiency (energy loss internal to the equipment inherent in converting electricity or gas into heat).

That doesn't tell the whole story, though, because there's the issue of responsiveness (which is why I now have induction, having moved from a gas kitchen to an all electric house). Gas and induction, you change the setting and you more or less instantly change amount of energy being transferred into your pan. Then you just have to wait for that change in energy input to result in the pan (and then food) to change temperature. With electric coil, you change the amount of energy being transferred into the burner coil, then have to wait for the burner to change temperature, which will result in a change in the energy being transferred to the pan, then wait for the change in temperature of the pan. So it neither heats up nor cools off as quickly. I don't think there's a rating for that-- it's either important to how you cook or it's not.

Thank you everyone for your replies. Thanks quirk! Your explanation really helps. Now how do I figure out how efficient a gas burner is? If a gas burner is claiming 16,000 or 22,000 BTU's it is relevant to other factors. I understand the pans used have a lot to do with how the heat is conducted. Those same factors would count for induction as well right? Either way, anything is better than my 20 year old stove I have now..haha. It is just a big investment and I tend to over think things.

Yes, those same factors would count for induction as well, with the proviso that some pans won't work with induction at all. But if you only include induction-responding pans on the two different fuels, you'd be closer at a reasonable comparison.

I have gas (main stove, but on the fritz at the moment) and a portable (Viking) induction burner. Not all my stainless steel pans work on the induction burner. All-Clad does, Dansk doesn't. Cast iron should, in theory, work like gangbusters, but individual cast iron pieces with narrow rings around the base don't work as well since they are not flat on the surface of the induction unit. One slightly warped All-Clad saute doesn't work as well as it should because of the same not-perfect-contact issues. Of course on gas, it works just fine. Some cheap SS pans work OK on induction, (Denmark brand bought at BBB, for instance). The Tramontina Tri-PLy SS line bought from WalMart.com - a dead ringer for AllClad - works extremely well on induction and is a CI best-value. My good commercial SS Volrath stock pots don't work at all.

I think part of analyzing (in truly accurate way) the efficiency also needs to take into account the materials used in the pot. For instance, I often (on gas) boil up pasta water in a Revereware pot I inherited from my Mom. It's thin (quick to heat but also probably loses heat from its sides). The same volume of water in, say, a Le Creuset pot may take more raw energy - and time - because the mass of the pot must be heated before the water is. If you're cooking something for a long time, then the energy invested in heating Le Creuset may be a more economical choice, over say Reverware, but for pasta which is 12-15 to a boil and 6-9 minutes for the pasta cooking the thinner pot may be better. I don't have the answers to that, but I have wondered.

My highest gas burners are 12K (with a bit knocked off because I use propane, not gas.) This was a quantum leap over my previous regular gas ranges. I could use quirk's formula to caluculate the induction burner output, if that would be a help and add commentary on comparative (apparent) efficiency. Keep in mind, too, that availablity and local cost among the fuels can make a big difference and these do vary. Although I am a dedicated gas-lover, I'm thinking of adding more induction capacity since we are installing photovoltaic panels to make our own electricity.

HTH

L.

Heh. I wrote that last night under the influence of way too much chianti. I was a little bit afraid to come back and look at what I had rambled on about. ::embarrassed grin:: Glad you found it at least a bit helpful. My main point was supposed to be that figuring out how different stoves compare, if you really care how powerful they are, isn't necessarily just a matter at looking at the rated numbers, though that's a starting point. Or I think that was my point, anyway. To me, having a very high powered burner isn't particularly important, I care more about responsiveness and control. And, yes, I didn't think to mention, but I had to buy new pans when I bought my cooktop, because most of mine didn't work with induction.

Per Wikipedia, efficiency for gas and electric at are:
gas - 40%
induction - 84%
smooth top non-induction electrical unit - 74%
Didn't see anything for electric coil efficiency.

These are in terms of site energies at the customer's meters. Oh, but wait, there's more (said in my best Ronco ad voice over) - "The (US averaged) efficiencies recalculated relative to source fuels energies are hence 25% for induction hobs, and 38% for gas hobs."

I can't figure out how 84% becomes 25% and why the efficiencies of these two cooking methods go topsy-turvy. And then there's the variability factor based on which pan you use, as pointed out above. It's enough to make one's head hurt!

quirk, if you want to feed your geeky side ;-) there's more at the link below. And then maybe you can break it down into layman's terms for the rest of us.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia - efficiency of induction cooking

Heh. I wrote that last night under the influence of way too much chianti.

Don't drink and derive. ;-)

(I don't think you made any mistakes!)

I can't figure out how 84% becomes 25% and why the efficiencies of these two cooking methods go topsy-turvy.

I just gave that Wiki article a quick scan. (Is that redundant? Wiki=quick.) I think what they are trying to include is the efficiency of producing electricity from raw (typically fossil) fuels, and, to a much lesser extent, the efficiency of distributing natural gas.

When you burn a fuel to make electricity, you lose about 2/3 of the energy content of the fuel. So, in other words, if you have some natural gas and you want to boil water, you would be better off burning natural gas under your pot than to burn it, spin a turbine connected to a generator that makes electricity, transport the electricity over power lines, then use the electricity to create a time-varying magnetic field that would induce eddy electrical currents in the bottom of your pot, thereby heating the pot and then the water.

wow i can't keep up with it all. i guess anything is better than my 20 year old range at this point. :)

Angie is correct on how the 84% efficiency of induction becomes ~25% efficiency. It's because the electrical efficiency at the point of use was actually created by using other, much less efficient fuels: nuclear, gas, coal, bio-mass, hydro power (think TVA or Niagra Falls) wind or solar. Each of these has an energy efficiency/cost all its own to mine, collect, transport, store, burn, etc. just to produce the electricity.

That's why I'm planning on adding electricity-fueled cooking (more induction since it's highly efficient at cooking) now that I have locally - out in my garden - collected photovoltaic power. Of course, I still have to account for the manufacturing and transportation energy costs of the panels and components of my system. I live in northern NY, an area soon perhaps to be invaded by the natural gas-mining technique of hydrofracking which in some areas has been a serious environmental disaster. I can't escape the reality that my preferred cooking fuel (propane) is made from natural gas. But in my area, electricity is also primarily generated from gas - as well as some coal and nuclear power - along with good old Niagra Falls and Hydro Quebec. Since I heat with wood (from my wood lot), the electricity and the propane I use for cooking are my main brought-in fuels. I am trying to minimize my impact, especially gas used to produce electricty by installing the PV system. I am very concerned about hydrofracking in NY.

L.

I don't know anything about all those calculations, but let me just say that I've been disappointed with the last two gas stoves that I've owned. The one I have now is a Capital and it has 15,000 BTU burners, but it still can't boil a big pot of water as fast as my trusty old Sears electric, which believe me was nothing special. And I've noticed that whenever I cook at anyone else's house... most electric stove tops can get hotter than gas. The only thing is you can't turn it down as fast! I wouldn't get a gas stove again unless I could afford a REALLY big one like a Viking. I'd like to try an induction cooker.