It is clear that energy consumption cannot continue to grow exponentially for much more than 1000 years. But it might be argued that we can continue to extract ever more economic value from less and less energy, especially with VR. This is discussed in the debate between Robin Hanson and Bryan Caplan, and Toby Ord in the comments.
“there are limits in how much value (whether in an economic or moral sense) we can produce per unit of available energy, and (ii) we will eventually only be able to expand the total amount of available energy subexponentially (there can only be so much stuff in a given volume of space, and the amount of available space is proportional to the speed of light cubed—polynomial rather than exponential growth).
...
And:
In 275, 345, and 400 years, [assuming current growth rates of global power demand] we demand all the sunlight hitting land and then the earth as a whole, assuming 20%, 100%, and 100% conversion efficiencies, respectively. In 1350 years, we use as much power as the sun generates. In 2450 years, we use as much as all hundred-billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
It is clear that energy consumption cannot continue to grow exponentially for much more than 1000 years. But it might be argued that we can continue to extract ever more economic value from less and less energy, especially with VR. This is discussed in the debate between Robin Hanson and Bryan Caplan, and Toby Ord in the comments.
See the comment here by Max Daniel:
“there are limits in how much value (whether in an economic or moral sense) we can produce per unit of available energy, and (ii) we will eventually only be able to expand the total amount of available energy subexponentially (there can only be so much stuff in a given volume of space, and the amount of available space is proportional to the speed of light cubed—polynomial rather than exponential growth).
...
And: