Originally Posted by
choddo
Ok well in my physics degree and generally in British English we never use the terms heat and energy interchangeably so the phrase “we add heat in the form of electrons” (paraphrasing) made no sense to me. Agree with you there’s some waste heat from the regen system but obviously a lot less than a traditional brake.
You are missing the forest for the pedantic (and slightly jingoistic) trees. How far back in the chain do you want to go? The electrons moved about by the regenerative braking is coming from the kinetic energy that is motivating the bike. The kinetic energy is provided by the mechanical energy of the bicycle which is generated from the heat provided by the chemical energy used by the human riding it to provide a different bit of mechanical energy to move the bike.
That chemical energy comes from plants which were grown using other heat energy.
The point, however, is that whether the energy is heat, chemical, mechanical or electrical, it is all related and can be used interchangeably.