BTU conversion to Watts

[albertaoilman]

Excuse my ignorance in this post but I am researching into the feasability of utilizing microwave heating to replace a 5 million BTU per hour diesel fired heater used in the petroleum industry to heat crude oil and water. I am having difficulty in finding simple heating conversion factors back and forth between english and metric.
Through my initial searching I have come up with some numbers that suggest that 3400 BTU equals 1 watt so this gives me roughly a number that 5 mill BTU = 1500 kilowatts of electromagnetic heating.
With 749 watts equalling one horse power, would this need a 2000 hp driver for the generator suppling the power source ? (1500/.749)
Any links to conversion tables or software downloads that would help in this would be greatly appreciated !

 

[IRstuff]

5 million BTU/hr ~ 1.5 megawatts.

The conversion factor is 1 kilowatt = 3412.1416 BTU/hr



TTFN

 

[logbook]

My data book gives
1 Btu = 1055 Joules (but this seems to be an approximate number according to other sources)

Note that a Btu is a unit of energy not of power.

1 Btu/second = 1055 watts
1 Btu/ minute= 17.583 W
1Btu/hour = 0.293 W

http://www.dhc.net/~allsup/units.htm#B

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0808994.html

 

[sreid]

A good online conversion site.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/