Energy as cause and effect

I just read the following article, which attempts to address all the whining about energy not making any sense (e.g. Feynman) or being mysterious (e.g. National Standards) by looking at how energy was defined historically:

Coelho, Ricardo Lopes. 2009. On the concept of energy: History and philosophy for science teaching. World Conference on Educational Sciences, Elsevier.

Robert Mayer defined energy in terms of cause and effect. He considered that the weight and height of a falling body cause it to fall and gain velocity, and that these two are related by mh~mv^2. He considered that motion causes heat and vice versa, and calculated an equivalence between them:

Forces are causes, is its basic statement. This is used to apply to forces the classical saying 'causa aequat effectum', c=e. If the effect e becomes a cause of an effect f, then e=f. Mayer writes c=e=f...=c. The quantity of force holds therefore constant. Mayer expresses this in the form: force is indestructible. As c=e, Mayer says that c is transformed into e because at the end, no part of c can exist, and at the beginning no part of e exists. He pointed out, however, that, for instance, 'transformation of heat into mechanical effect’ expresses a fact and does not explain the physical process. We also say, he exemplifies, that ice is transformed into water and this is not dependent on how and why it happens. He adds that these kinds of questions are useless and typical of poets and philosophers of nature (Mayer 1978, p. 52). ‘Transformation’ does not explain therefore what is going on in a physical process. The concept was instead used to connect observable data.

From this, and some other stuff about Joule which I found not as fun to read, Coelho concludes:

Energy is usually presented in the following way: ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only transformed’. If energy cannot be destroyed, it must be a real existing thing. If its form changes, it must be something real as well. Thus, that statement can easily lead to the concept of energy as something material. The German physician Robert Mayer did not find, however, anything like a substance but rather a methodology for dealing with phenomena. Using observable or measurable elements, he established equivalences between different domains, such as those which concern heat, motion, position or electricity. Let us suppose that we use Mayer's methodology for dealing with phenomena. In this case, we know in advance that an equivalence is established by us between certain quantities. Hence, we do not need the ‘indestructibility’ of an entity to express that the quantity does not change. As we also know that we establish equivalences between mechanical, thermal, electrical quantities, we do not need to suppose the ‘transformability’ of the same entity. Thus, we understand energy conservation and transformation as a consequence of our dealing with the phenomena. Some difficulties with the concept of energy as something material can be overcome.

Since I don't see a problem with energy as a substance, I don't find the need for such an explanation quite as compelling as Coelho does, but I do find it intriguing. It might be useful as an additional way to think about energy, alongside the substance metaphor we like so much.