Reply #100: I see

[rman]

Good that we have that cleared up. My bad i guess.
So, 15% of the input is used to power the machine, and some part of that 15% is (inevitably) lost, most of it probably as heat.

As i understand it, it's kind of like an oven, where in burning fuel, the 'exhaust product' is an energy-rich substance, not just ashes. It uses say, 10 units of input to create enough energy (much of it heat, i gather) to convert 85 units of input in useless form - useless from a petrochemical point of view - (turkeys, wheat, people) to 85 units of useful stuff (oil, pure carbon). Very little energy would be lost as heat. Still sounds pretty miraculous to me.

I still find it highly implausible that as you put it elsewhere "the machine creates its own energy".

Also it doesn't solve other issues such as the fact that the more energy-rich the input, the more energy we have presumably put into it in the first place, thus making it as energy-rich as it is. Doesn't just take sunlight, it also takes synthetic fertilizer (uses natural gas), feeding, harvesting, transportation, processing. All that uses a lot of energy, and supposedly the machine is going to provide for all of that. 80 million barrels a day and rising.