But I didn’t put the energy in much of what exist in the can. Nature did most of work. My energy expenditures are roughly the fire I supply and processing cost of a person who process the resources for me.

Quite right, but too often people forget that fact.

Solar and wind energy just like oil is a natural process. The cost of solar energy is in the manufacturing and maintenance of the equipment to convert the energy to something useful. Saying solar is a free energy source is saying oil sources are free. The issue is which process of conversion is most cost effective.

That's one issue, others are the cost of use, and the long term availability.

But I didn’t put the energy in much of what exist in the can. Nature did most of work. My energy expenditures are roughly the fire I supply and processing cost of a person who process the resources for me.

Solar and wind energy just like oil is a natural process. The cost of solar energy is in the manufacturing and maintenance of the equipment to convert the energy to something useful. Saying solar is a free energy source is saying oil sources are free. The issue is which process of conversion is most cost effective.

Yes but there is the issue of cost efficiency.

In any technology.

Sound like you are trying to be slick (no pun intended). If I light a can of gunpowder or gas on fire, I will get much more energy than I put in.

No you won't. You'll get an exothermic reaction, but you'll have the same amount of energy you had in the original can of gunpowder, minus the energy you expended igniting it.

However as apply to energy resources the proper measurement is how much energy it takes to recover, refine and transport it.

It's all a matter of how much energy you have to put in, and how much you get at the cost of someone/something else. In the case of oil, we didn't pay the cost of creating it, so we get a net positive by burning it. Electrolysis consumes more energy than it can produce, but if the consumed energy comes for free (solar), then we get a net positive.

“It's the curse of thermodynamics, for any conceivable system, the amount of energy output will be less than the amount of energy input.”

Sound like you are trying to be slick (no pun intended). If I light a can of gunpowder or gas on fire, I will get much more energy than I put in. Now if you take into account all the energy the earth use to make the resources like oil and natural gas, then you may have a point. However as apply to energy resources the proper measurement is how much energy it takes to recover, refine and transport it.

By the above definition, a net energy gain is achieved by expending less energy acquiring a source of energy than is contained in the source to be consumed. That is,
NEG = EnergyConsumable − EnergyExpended.

Surely you are not saying that it takes more barrels of oil to extract and refine it than the number of barrels that one gets out of the process.

It's the curse of thermodynamics, for any conceivable system, the amount of energy output will be less than the amount of energy input.

Surely you are not saying that it takes more barrels of oil to extract and refine it than the number of barrels that one gets out of the process.

No, I'm saying it takes more energy to create a barrel of oil than you can extract from a barrel of oil.

ah the joys of moonlighting a comment board at work.

That's what compiling is for.

For the record I'm really not digging alternative automobile fuel. I'm more of a grid power junkie.

Surely you are not saying that it takes more barrels of oil to extract and refine it than the number of barrels that one gets out of the process.

Now it can be said that it takes more to convert oil to electricity then transported and putting in an electric car than if you just converted it to gas and put it in a gasoline engine. Beside the fell good smug facture what good is it to use 1.5 gallons of gas to produce the electricity you need when you could use 1 gallon of gas instead.

As I have said many times before, due to the power fluctuations of solar if someone could efficiently marry up a storage medium like fuel cells to solar it would greatly advance solar power.

You mean like solar thermal? There's also flywheels and gravity storage, and of course the trusty old battery. Probably you were referring more specifically to a portable storage medium, something you can fit into a car. Personally I like the idea of building hydrocarbons from the free H2 plus atmospheric CO2, easier to store than H2, plus cleans the air when you make it.

That statement made me shake my head at first until I actually read the article. The key difference is the article said “efficiently” which make a great deal of difference.

I agree that Solar power technologies and constraints are nowhere close to where the need to be. As I have said many times before, due to the power fluctuations of solar if someone could efficiently marry up a storage medium like fuel cells to solar it would greatly advance solar power. They have made some advances in the production and toxic waste byproduct of solar cell but it is not where it needs to be either.

There's plenty of energy-related scifi, anything where it costs more to produce the energy yield falls under this field.

Every source of energy costs more to produce than it yields.

Even if it proves out, though, don't expect it to show up at the hardware store soon. There is still no cheap way to store the hydrogen and oxygen.