[cc2k]

My thermo professor used to paraphrase the Three Laws as:

1. You can't win.
2. You can't even break even.
3. Things are going to get worse and not get better.

I've heard that one. My physics teacher in high school said almost the same thing, but added to #3 "and you aren't allowed to quit the game, either."

[FreedomPoster]

By way of qualification, I have undergraduate and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in energry systems, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, that sort of thing. That said, your layman's summary of thermo is as good as it gets. Formal thermodynamics just adds a bunch of math to those ideas to better define what is meant.

In general, science and technology "reporting" is abyssmal. For energy and fuels policy, you then combine that reporting with business/economics reporting (another area of reportial non-expertise) and you've got the prescription for some real nonsense in print.