This is energy that could have instead gone into exhaust velocity.
The most efficient reaction motors are those with the highest exhaust velocity.
Performance headers work to increase the exhaust velocity as much as possible.
This also means that rockets are able to exceed their exhaust velocity.
Hydrogen is often proposed since it has the highest exhaust velocity.
You get a rocket with arbitrarily high exhaust velocity!
At such an exhaust velocity,, no great mass had to be discharged.
The force the exhaust gas makes is called the exhaust velocity.
This ratio means that relatively small potential differences can create very high exhaust velocities.
It is also called the effective exhaust velocity.