We get the energetic ability to maintain and grow our civilization's physical infrastructure from the exploitation of new (hopefully larger and larger) energy sources and constant improvements in energy efficiency across as many sectors of the global economy as possible.
If Tim Garrett's insight is correct, over 90% of our energy use goes to supporting civilization's "operations and maintenance" (O&M) activities. If GWP grows by 3% in a given year, then the world's energy budget must grow by about the same amount to support it, less the amount recouped by efficiency improvements.
The amount of energy we use each year becomes a new baseline that must be repeated every following year (less some decrement for efficiency improvements, plus an increment for yearly growth)). This is why, even during an economic crash, energy use doesn't decline much. Growth takes a hit and O&M activity goes down, but we still need to maintain the infrastructure, so energy use can't go down too far, or for too long.
This is one of the reasons I think most renewable energy build-out is going to remain additive to the FF consumption base. Civilization needs every last joule we can get our hands on if we don't want our existing stuff to fall apart, and then a bit more to underwrite the growth everyone is so keen on. But even if growth were to cease altogether, it wouldn't reduce the amount of energy we need, beyond the efficiency improvement rate. The growth in global energy efficiency (as measured by the change in the energy intensity of constant dollar GWP) is dropping right now, and is under 2% per year.
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