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From: jeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: KS Perpetual Motion Machine (spoiler)
Message-ID: <266@rtech.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 26-Mar-85 02:38:18 EST
Article-I.D.: rtech.266
Posted: Tue Mar 26 02:38:18 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-85 03:45:43 EST
References: <1264@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Berkeley CA
Lines: 37

> 
> 		The Kappa Sigma Perpetual Motion Machine
> 
> Description
> 
> Consider an unfinished tower at the edge of a river.  Hydrolysis is performed
> continuously on some water from the river and the subsequent oxygen and 
> hydrogen gasses are stored in balloons, which being lighter than air rise
> to the top of the tower where the balloons are burst and a spark ignites the
> gasses which combine into water.  The water is permitted to fall through
> a vacuum tube into a turbine which generates twenty percent more electricity
> than is needed to operate the aforementioned operations.
> 
> Rebuttal
> 
> For every energy loss, for any inefficiency, for each diminished return
> there is but one response:
> 					BUILD THE TOWER HIGHER !

It takes energy not only to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, but also
to displace the air when the gases are created.  The energy that goes into
displacing the air is stored as buoyancy, a form of potential energy.  You
can't get more energy back from the buoyancy than you put in; building the
tower beyond this point won't do any good, because the balloon won't float
above there.  So the energy you get back from the falling water will
at best equal the energy it takes to displace the air, no matter how tall
you build the tower.

When you burned the hydrogen and oxygen at the top, you threw away the energy
from the heat of combustion.  This energy is equal to that required to separate
the molecules.  Since you throw away this energy, you won't have it available
at the bottom to separate more water.

Nice problem.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak