Making energy work

Talk origins has a segment where they refute particular creationist claims. I was directed to this claim about energy transfer

Claim CF001.5:

Energy inflow into a system is not enough to make that energy useful. There must also be an energy conversion mechanism. Without that system, evolution cannot work.

Sourced from: Yahya, Harun, 2003. Darwinism Refuted, Evolution and thermodynamics.

Their response was two-fold. Dealing with them in order

Any atom can be an energy conversion mechanism. Atoms routinely convert between light energy, thermal energy, and chemical potential energy. The energy conversion mechanism is ubiquitous.

They seemed to have missed the word "useful" in the original quote. Drop water over a fall and the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, heat and sound at ground level. How is that useful? How is that work? But place a water wheel in it's path: an "energy conversion mechanism" and one gets useful work. The "conversion mechanism" is not referring to the change in energy type, it is referring to the ability to extract work.

Moving on

A lack of an energy conversion system would not only invalidate evolution; it would invalidate life itself. Evolution requires only reproduction, natural selection, and heritable variation, all of which are observed in life. The conversion of energy is a quality of life, so the conversion system exists for evolution to work with.

Equivocation. Natural selection requires reproduction, and heritable variation (no dispute). Macroevolution requires an expanded genome: new genes, promoters, proteins, control sequences, etc. For this one needs a source, mutation being the favoured source among evolutionists. I claim no there is no known mutation that increases information. Beneficial mutations are not necessarily information gaining.

I fail to see how life invalidates the claim. Living things are energy conversion systems.

The nature of information needs expanding; but for another time.