It depends on how much time 45 j will go, so if you told me that it went through 45 j per minute it will go through for 2 minutes so not efficient unless it went through 45 j per hour then it is efficient.
The answer is true, is called Thermal pollotion:).
I'm assuming it was to keep the data consistent? The further you are from a heat source the less heat will get to you as the temperature tries to reach equilibrium and the waves start to spread out, so you should keep everything the same distance to get consistent results. I don't have any information so this is just my assumption
