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“Efficient” is a relative comparison. Any absolute threshold would be arbitrary anyway

Not really. Converting all the energy to work would be 100% efficiency, converting none of it would be 0%. It's an absolute measure.

Now sure there are subcategories where 100% efficiency is the maximum theoretical efficiency (like the carnot cycle limit of 37% for heat engines), but that's already misleading info if not specified.

You provide no points to refute my statement. Being bounded between 0% and 100% is irrelevant, unless you think only 100% efficient is not inefficient - which would be absurd due to the impossibility of obtaining an “efficient” label.

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