Why kettles boil slowly in the US  I saw a tweet recently that
intrigued me:  The voltage of mains electricity varies from
country to country: the majority of countries use between 200
and 240 volts, but a small minority (most notably the US, Canada
and Japan) use between 100 and 127 volts.  Countries using
100-127 volts are shown in red; countries using 200-240 volts
are shown in blue. Countries with a mixture of the two systems
are shown in purple.  The voltage* of an electrical supply is
what pushes electrons around in a circuit. The higher the
voltage, the faster the electrons move and thus the higher the
current (one amp is equivalent to about six billion billion
electrons flowing past a point per second). With a low voltage
the rate of transfer of electrical energy is therefore much
slower. In the UK, with a mains voltage of 230 V and a limit of
13 A per socket the maximum possible power to one appliance is
2990 watts (2990 joules per second). In the USA, with a mains
voltage of 120 V and a limit of 15 