I mentioned that an HVAC engineer estimated that the Rossi device heat transfer efficiency is probably low. This is called the AFUE (annual fuel utilization efficiency). Typical AFUE are:
56 to 70% for old furnaces 80 to 83% for mid-range efficiency 90 to 99% for advanced, high efficiency heaters http://energy.gov/energysaver/furnaces-and-boilers The thing is, the HVAC engineer said that as a heater, Rossi's gadget is poorly designed. It should be at the low end of the scale. I am out of my depth here, but as I recall, the reasons were: A heater should have low surface area. Most are large cylinders to reduce surface area. This heater is series of small square boxes, which has the most surface area per unit of volume. This boiler has external pipes running from one box to the next, outside the boxes. Every pipe radiates heat, even if they are insulated. The path from the fluid inlet to the outlet should be as long as possible, and convoluted. With each box in this heater, the water goes in and comes right out, in a short path. In a boiler the "fluid" is either the water you want to heat, or in a fire tube boiler, it is the hot combustion product gas. See: http://www.spiraxsarco.com/Resources/Pages/Steam-Engineering-Tutorials/the-boiler-house/shell-boilers.aspx This is why I estimate the heat transfer efficiency is ~70%. The other 30% would be waste heat released inside the shipping container. This is only a very rough estimate by me. I suppose it could be higher given the insulation. But I doubt that it higher than the low end of today's the high efficiency heater. That would be 90%. So, a 1 MW heater will have between 100 and 300 kW of waste heat. - Jed
