"A natural process can create a fuel that stores more energy than what is required to liberate it (case: oil, coal, uranium), provided that the process of creation of that fuel more than pays the total energy budget."
This statement could give solace to those who are looking for or believe in perpetual motion machines ("free" energy). They may focus on the "liberate" part and skip right over the "budget" part. Spend what you cannot replace.
Yes it is true that "a few folks who dismiss this out of hand, claiming thermodynamics".
In order to debunk "creating" energy from seawater it would require a lot of learning about chemistry, etc. Most people would not want to sit still for all of that
There would be a lot of discussion of types and strengths of molecular bonds. The electron shells around nuclei. How catalysts reduce the energy hill or barrier required for a chemical process to occur at a lower temperature. Heats of reactions, etc
It goes on and on. Years in fact to understand it.
It is so far simpler for those of us that have studied chemistry which really is a subset of physics to simply say it violates the Laws of Thermodynamics and be done with it.
The belief of turning lead into gold will always reemerge in another form. I wish I could believe, I'm sitting on 5 tons of it.
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