Why do they only compare it to a technology that's intentionally being made prohibitively expensive by the government?
Unknown but real logic is almost as rare as cold fusion generators.
You are confusing units of measure.
If, and it is a big if, this can make a megawatt of high quality heat, you could convert it to electricity losing about 60 % to waste heat which may or may not have a value. So figure 400 watt hours x 24 hours a day or about 10 megawatt hours per day. Using your figure of $100/ MWh, that’s about $1000 per day.
Figure double the investment to include plumbing, turbine and generator, that’s about $3,000,000. At a thousand bucks per day, ROI is less than a year.
If this thing worked, it would be cheaper than coal fired, that is why it would be a very bid deal.
Why? ... Because ‘big oil’ runs the world and that means the media spews what they are told to spew.
They could have compared it to health care as well.