Question

You received an unsolicited proposal from a self-declared inventor who is seeking investors for the development of his latest idea: a device that uses heat extracted from the ground by a heat pump to boil water into steam that is used to heat a home and to power a steam engine that drives the heat pump. This procedure is potentially very lucrative because, after an initial extraction of energy from the groin, no fossil fuels would be required to keep the device running indefinitely. Would you invest in this idea? State your conclusion clearly and present detailed arguments to support it.