  In this Letter we discuss what happens to hydrogen recombination energy that
is released during regular common envelope (CE) events, as opposed to
self-regulated CE events. We show that the amount of recombination energy that
can be transferred away by either convection or radiation from the regions
where recombination takes place is negligible. Instead, recombination energy is
destined to be used either to help CE expansion, as a work term, or to
accelerate local fluid elements. The exceptions are donors that initially have
very high entropy material, $S/(k_B N_A)>37$ mol g$^{-1}$. The analysis and
conclusions are independent of specific stellar models or evolutionary codes,
and rely on fundamental properties of stellar matter such as the equation of
state, Saha equation and opacities, as well as on stellar structure equations
and the mixing length theory of convection.
