reilyroadster

Nil is not the problem, practically every language has such a concept - it's pretty much required to make things like Maybe/Optional work.

The problem is the implicitness of it and how easy it is to produce them and forget to check for them.

Some? Where else does the energy go?

An electronic circuit drawing 1W of input power will dissipate all of that 1W as heat (assuming it's not outputting light or sound or other physical side effects).