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How should you pop your popcorn to be most energy efficient? First consider all the ways that corn popping uses energy. One - it uses energy to heat and pop the corn. Two - it uses energy to wash the cooking utensils and serving dishes. Three - the heat it creates while popping makes your air conditioner run just a little longer to remove that extra heat from your kitchen.
Using a microwave oven is the most overall efficient method to pop corn. It uses the least energy to pop the corn which in turn puts the least additional load on your air conditioner. When I pop corn in the microwave, I eat it out of the bag, so there is no serving dish to clean. The next most efficient method is air popping and it is also the healthiest method. You can pop it with no oils at all. The worse method is popping corn on the stove top in an oil drenched pan.