Quote:
Originally Posted by IamIan
While I agree with a lot of what you wrote ... I will make one point of clarification ... there are endothermic conditions of electrolysis ... where a small % of the energy chemically stored in the H2 & O2 came from heat absorbed from the area ... this heat energy does not have to be 'paid for' by the electricity in the electrolysis ... so yes the energy came out that went in , but some of that 'go in' energy doesn't have to come from the electricity the user is paying for ... unfortunately it is too small of a % to compensate for ( as you already wrote ) all the other steps that are less than 100% efficient... and the final result is still getting out less than one put in... and even if the other steps could somehow be improved enough to get close ... it would just move the question to what one was using as a heat source for that 'free to me' energy input... it can't be something you ever have to pay for or it is not longer 'free' and that greatly limits the already very limited endothermic potential that is still to small to offset the other less than 100% efficient steps.
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I am in total agreement with this. I just didn't feel like getting very technical about it. It looks like you took up my slack, though.
Also of note is that if you inject water into the engine directly (i.e. without electrolysis), you're still putting some heat energy into the engine, but without the losses associated with the electrolysis machine. And if you use waste heat from the engine to pre-heat the water, you might get a little more efficiency out of the engine. The big question is whether or not it'll be worth the effort.