-----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell > In his blog, Rossi told me that the 1 MW reactor will be 1 MW thermal output. I do not know if it will be for process steam or electricity. My guess is steam, because it would cost a whole lot more to make an electric generator and you need high temperature ...
Actually, depending on the maximum safe exhaust temperature, something like the Capstone microturbine would be the ideal solution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capstone_Turbine Steam conversion would be higher Carnot efficiency, but who gives a damn when the heat is so cheap? Even at only 20% conversion - turbines make far more economic sense. What you really want to do with this form factor is to minimize overhead in the range of widest usability. There is little doubt that Rossi is being pushed up to the MW range by the Greek investors - who probably want it for ocean shipping. That may be overly ambitious at the start. A 100 kW (thermal) - 20+ kW electric version would be ideal for land transportation, and less risky than moving immediately to 10x that level for a less-enticing market. Jones
