There has been some discussion here as to whether you could heat an Olympic pool to boiling with a 900 W heater. The answer is no, you cannot. In fact there is no way you could even detect this much heat with that much water. As I mentioned that is the heat from two people swimming. That does not ever produce a measurable effect on the pool. It is swamped by sunlight, humidity, wind, the water being stirred by people swimming and other factors.
It depends upon how well the pool is insulated but I do not think you could do this even in deep space with a hard vacuum insulation. Here on earth, it would take about 10 MW to heat a pool to boiling, according to this site: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/swimming-pool-heating-d_878.html Length (ft) 164 Width (ft) 82 Depth (ft) 6 Initial Temperature (oF) 50 Final Temperature (oF) 212 Heat-up Load (Btu/hr) Heat Pick-up Time (hr) 24 CALCULATED VALUES: Volume (gal) 605160 (this is correct) Heat-up Load (Btu/hr) 34,067,482 34 067 482 (btu / hour) = 9.98419341 megawatts That sounds about right to me. People should think about their everyday experiences and try to do a reality check when considering questions such as this. - Jed
