Interesting and cool you are digging deep into these subjects, thanks for posting. I hope you keep digging to find the truth of how it all hangs together, for yourself, so you will be equipped to help others find the truth also.
Something to be wary of, is forgetting where it all came from, all those Joules of energy in heat, in kinetic, in the environment, even in the core of Earth, it all came from the sun, though some scientists will argue otherwise, based on the very flawed ideas of the "Big Bang".
Remembering the mathematical of signing energy, positive from sun, positive where used by us or nature to create useful things, negative where we destroy things created by nature, taking Joules that nature put to use, back out, helps us stay in touch with what is beneficial use of energy (creation), and what is destructive use of energy.
Sorry if that sounds condescending, it isn't meant to be, this is a fundamental error, the missing mathematical sign of energy resulting in misconceptions that we can see are now existential, made by the respected of scientists at all levels. Even the concept, and resulting business of "Renewables" becomes nonsense, when we trace the mathematical sign of energy through all symptoms and effects.
Further, the exclusive connection between mathematically negatively signed, or subtractive energy, and profit, becomes clear.
Each depends on the other to exist.
Eliminate negatively signed energy, by moving completely to positively signed energy, and the fundamental need for all humans to seek, and obtain profit, just to live, are removed.
This is coming to a head in the interface between utilities energy supply, and domestic and community solar, even when no physical connection exists, and the community is on an isolated microgrid.
Economic product is added by all solar Joules received and put to use, regardless of whether it just heated someone's house, saving them some money on utilities bills, or was converted to hydrogen fuel, or even food (see "Solein"), removing our burden from the energy withdrawn from Earth, whilst instead adding valuable complementary product, to everything created by nature.
This is so fundamental it borders on religion, hence why no career conscious scientists will tackle it, and you (nor I), have heard it talked about until now.
It marks the end of technical capitalism (based on historical, capitalised energy), and the beginning of something new, technical Energyism (based on live energy), something much more valuable, imho.
Where we need to get to, is money issued at a rate of Joules of solar energy received and put to use.
This is how money has to change, now that we are accepting and putting mathematically positive energy to use.
This is the only way to balance issue of money with creation of product, as is necessary to retain value in money. In other words, to eliminate inflation.
Not doing this will result in money progressively coming to represent nothing, whilst solar relentlessly scales up, and utilities power correspondingly reduces to zero.
I hope this helps a little.
I can only cover a small fraction of the work I've covered in six years working voluntarily I on it since seeing the energy problem coming, around six years ago, it was a show stopper of PhD candidate research I was working on at the time. Now this arguably all becomes part of the same PhD, some day.
I have yet to find a company willing to fund this work, other than me myself.
I trust it will pay off in any case, as it will for all of us, when we formally move to Energyism, and genuine, full sustainability, beneficial to our planet.
We won't care so much about efficiency, after all the energy we are using is additive, rather than subtractive, a little lost is not such a big deal after that :)
I guess what I am trying to say here is, efficiency, and its corresponding financial, equivalent; profit, are both dependent on subtractive use of energy, and as such it is a distraction to become fixated on them.
As Elon Musk apparently says, "No point optimising something that shouldn't exist".
(He should practice what he preaches!) :))