V. Jaksic, C.-A. Pillet On the strict positivity of entropy production (169K, pdf) ABSTRACT. We refine an abstract result of the authors concerning the strict positivity of entropy production of $L^1$--asymptotically Abelian $C^\ast$-dynamical systems and apply the new result to a model describing finitely many free Fermi gas reservoirs coupled by local interactions. In particular, assuming that the reservoirs are initially not at equal temperatures or chemical potentials, we show that there is a dense set of local interactions such that the entropy production of the system is strictly positive for sufficiently small non-zero coupling.