Yes, this bothered me too. It's impressive how much energy is required to just melt water much less bring it to temperature. It's 330 kJ/kg, which is 1250 kJ/gallon: 350 Wh. So it costs more energy to defrost one gallon of water than it does to do the rest of the 110F temperature change.
The physics term for this is the "latent heat of fusion," or the energy required to change states from liquid to solid, or vice versa.
A few years ago I saw someone calculate the energy required to melt the ice in front of a locomotive (I think) at speed; IIRC it required a (not small!) nuclear reactor's worth of energy. Not practical!
> A few years ago I saw someone calculate the energy required to melt the ice in front of a locomotive (I think) at speed; IIRC it required a (not small!) nuclear reactor's worth of energy.
The physics term for this is the "latent heat of fusion," or the energy required to change states from liquid to solid, or vice versa.
A few years ago I saw someone calculate the energy required to melt the ice in front of a locomotive (I think) at speed; IIRC it required a (not small!) nuclear reactor's worth of energy. Not practical!