The Oil Drum

About time someone repealed one of the basic laws underlying physics.

Of course, in all fairness, it is possible that some sort of chemical action is taking place, especially with that 'secret liquid catalyst' and potassium carbonate (color me very sceptical, though).

Basic physics aside the article and the schema don't explain one thing: they claim that the reaction is taking place in a mixture of water, potassium carbonate and that "secret catalyst". After the heated water escapes, obviously the dissolved carbonate and "secret catalyst" also escape with it... where does the device continuously inject those compounds in the incoming water? How much would I need for a liter? Per joule of produced heat? Were they factored in the EROEI? Oh right, they can't because that catalyst is a secret... LOL

You can buy ground source and air source heat pumps that put out via an exchanger 1:3 to 1:5 energy in for heat output (of course they take the heat from the air or ground). I've been lookign at a DIY one in the UK:

http://www.cooleasy.co.uk/product-wall.htm eg 1Kw elec. in, 3.3-3.6Kw heat out

The problem is that natural gas is still very much cheaper than electricity (in the UK anyway) for heating your house/water so these devices would only become viable if the price of the heating fuel relative to that of electricity was to go up. OR// if you have no natural GAS!

This device seems to be achieving the same result (if not quite as efficient) as the heat pump idea - except they don't know where the extra energy is coming from in this case.

Marco.

The inventor holds this patent for a similar device from 1998:

http://www.primeideas.info/patents/PART51.pdf

If the device puts out more energy than you put into it, what happens when you hook two of 'em together in a loop? Mushroom cloud? Meltdown? Rift in spacetime?

What is the EROEI on the catalyst? I am given to understand that the productions of chrome involves a heating process that uses silicon or aluminium.
Silicon is commercially prepared by the reaction of high-purity silica with wood, charcoal, and coal, in an electric arc furnace using carbon electrodes - using fossil fuel energys.
Aluminum is also energy intensive to make with an "average specific energy consumption of approximately 15±0.5 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of aluminium produced from alumina. (52 to 56 MJ/kg). The most modern smelters reach approximately 12.8 kW·h/kg (46.1 MJ/kg)." (from wikki)
On the face of things it looks good, but what the real costs are, and how long the unit and its catalyst last need to be known for a fair evaluation.
Chrome, as a heavy metal might also be a significant source of polution in the istance that these should become common place And that the catalyst had to be regularly disgarded.