Earth is an open system in terms of energy but a closed system regarding materials.
We receive from the sun much more energy than we are transforming today into usable energy. I think the limiting factor to create devices (be them renewal energies, fusion, …) that transform this sun’s energy into usable energy are land, materials, and available energy (mainly fossil) to build the devices in the first place. So, it would be impossible to create something on infinite scale.
But let’s assume we can create an energy transformation device that overweighs so much the energy we can consume that we can call it in practice an “infinite” energy source. Even in this (in my mind far away) scenario we would see then the bottleneck in materials and economic growth will not be able to go on forever.
At some point on time humanity will face the moment “OK, from now on we will be less humans and/or have less per capita”.
This is in addition to @Corentin Biteau concerns on whether keep growing the energy we can use is a good thing or not.
Earth is an open system in terms of energy but a closed system regarding materials.
We receive from the sun much more energy than we are transforming today into usable energy. I think the limiting factor to create devices (be them renewal energies, fusion, …) that transform this sun’s energy into usable energy are land, materials, and available energy (mainly fossil) to build the devices in the first place. So, it would be impossible to create something on infinite scale.
But let’s assume we can create an energy transformation device that overweighs so much the energy we can consume that we can call it in practice an “infinite” energy source. Even in this (in my mind far away) scenario we would see then the bottleneck in materials and economic growth will not be able to go on forever.
At some point on time humanity will face the moment “OK, from now on we will be less humans and/or have less per capita”.
This is in addition to @Corentin Biteau concerns on whether keep growing the energy we can use is a good thing or not.