An Inventor Has Created a Heat Engine That Extracts Energy

question 54

Multiple Choice

An inventor has created a heat engine that extracts energy from geothermal hotspots and geysers like Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. She claims to turn all of the geothermal energy into work. Such a device is

• A) a violation of the first law of thermodynamics.
• B) consistent with Clausius's statement of the second law of thermodynamics.
• C) only possible for a Carnot cycle.
• D) a violation of Kelvin's statement of the second law of thermodynamics.

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Definitions:

Allocative Efficiency

Achieved when resources are distributed in a way that maximizes the net benefit to society, ensuring that each good is produced up to the point where the last unit provides a marginal benefit equal to the marginal cost of producing it.

Regulation Dilemma

The challenge of finding the balance between necessary government intervention in markets to correct failures and excessive regulation that may stifle competition and innovation.

Economic Profits

The excess of total revenues over the total costs, including both explicit and implicit costs, indicating the profitability beyond the normal return of investments.

Natural Monopoly

A market condition where a single supplier can provide a product or service at a lower cost than any potential competitor, often due to economies of scale.