Letter to Editor/spl minus/electrolysis heat

The letter refers to the Toby Grotz's paper "Novel Means of Hydrogen Production Using Dual Polarity Control" and Waiter Russell's "Experiments with Zero Point Energy" presented at the 27th IECEC in San Diego in 1992. Commercial air to air heat pumps typically exhibit a COP, coefficient of performance, of 1.5, which means they deliver 1.5 units of thermal energy for each 1.0 units of electrical energy input. It is more likely that these 'Zero Point' effects are the electrical analogue of a mechanically powered vapor compression refrigeration cycle. The electrolyzer phenomenon reported by Grotz and others, if true, is a heat pump. Another commercial example of an all electrical, non-mechanical, refrigeration cycle heat pump are the in-room refrigerators in Japanese hotels, which utilize the reverse thermoelectric effect. Readers are reminded that the so-called "Zero Point Effect" is not producing more energy than is supplied to the systems, just that the COP mechanism is not yet understood in this case. The editor's response to the unexplained heat release during electrolysis is presented. He describes the experiment which was carried out with electrolysis currents ranging up to 75 amperes. For each temperature rise the resistance heating required more power than did the electrolysis process. The electrolysis had even delivered additional power in the fuel value of the released hydrogen, which was dissipated into the air. The authors calculated that making a gallon of such water would release the energy equivalent of 30 gallons of gasoline.<
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