ORIGINAL: transam388
As you said, nothing is for free but if you can actually come up with something so efficient that it can create more power than it takes to use then you are onto something. IE turbos and superchargers on real cars. They do actually take power to make power but the gains are way above the power used.
Yeah, the turbo works b'cos it makes the high-end combustion more effective. In other words, a secondary process that consumes power, but improves the efficiency of the primary process, and/or to raises the maximum output of the primary process.