is recycled to vessel v 3 by way of streams s 11 s 13 s 14 fig5 shows a standard reheat steam cycle utilizing streams s 15 s 20 which generates power or electricity from a thermochemical cycle such as that shown in fig4 heat exchangers h 8 and h 10 pick up energy from heat exchangers h 2 h 3 h 4 h 5 h 6 shown in fig4 and utilize turbines t 1 and t 2 to generate power and or electricity note that the heat load shown in table 6 for h 8 h 10 is equal in magnitude to that of h 2 h 3 h 4 h 5 h 6 the steam cycle shown in fig5 is intended only as an example and other elements may be used to achieve similar or better results for example fuel cells can be utilized instead of turbines for energy generation fig4 and 5 and their associated data represent one example of the use of the present invention and does not represent the maximum system efficiency possible other embodiments of the present invention could achieve efficiencies of 75 80 other systems of equations can be generated that involve the same intermediates in addition other alkali metals and alkali earth metals can be used in place of sodium finally mixtures of these metals their carbonates and or their hydroxides can be used according to the present invention as can combinations of these materials with transition metals although the description above contains many details these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but as merely providing illustrations of some of the presently preferred embodiments of this.