[freebeard]

1)

Don't know. It's a process, presumably process heat.

2)

I think of it as a carbon battery that allow transporting the carbon from a source to a need.

3)

The opportunity cost of all the electrification is in not transitioning to 'metaphysically engendered'* nanoscale metamaterials. "There's plenty of room at the bottom" Richard P. Feynman

*Bucky Fuller term