"Quality Energy" ( i.e. "exergy" ) can do work.
Mass is quality energy, it has exergy.

Net Net, All Things Considered: Exergy only goes down, not up.

You ( Greg ) seem to think the first law of thermodynamics¹
negates the second one², it doesn't.

[ ¹: Net Net, energy ( not mass, not exergy ) is conserved.
  ²: Net Net, exergy ( and mass ) only ever goes down, not up. ]

Like I said:

  The energy of the (semi⋅known) cosmos is fixed ( "closed" );
  but the QUALITY¹ of its energy drops.
  The mass² of the (semi⋅known) cosmos only ever goes down, not up.
  [ ¹: Call it "EXERGY", energy that can do work.
    ²: Mass is quality energy, it has exergy. ]

  The Standard Model of Particle Physics is merely
  a list of known quanta.  Anti⋅Matter aside,
  it makes NO predictions about the mass of undiscovered quanta.

  When the Known Universe was much hotter and denser,
  closer to the start of the "big bang", there might've
  been a "Top Quark Condensate"¹ ( NOT a Higgs field ).
  [ ¹: WikiPedia.ORG/wiki/Top_quark_condensate ]

  By the way, CERN says their so⋅called "Higgs boson"
  has no spin; i.e. it's "scalar", directionless.
  Now they want to know if it's chiral¹, "pseudoscalar".

  [ ¹: You are "chiral" because, when you raise your right hand,
       your mirror image raises its left hand ]