>No civilization has fallen because they depleted the available energy.
What available energy means is energy "available" for extraction. Not total energy that exists in the earth.
>Some have failed because their use of energy outpaced their ability to extract available energy.
This is just word play. You know what I mean. But we can still play the game if you want.
Basically if the civilization can't extract energy then the energy isn't "available." That's what the word available means.
> The entire planet could run for 100 years on just the toxic waste from a single US nuclear plant.
Uh no. If we replaced all current world power with copies nuclear plants running in the US we'd be out of nuclear resources in a year.
With breeder reactors and ocean water we have about 60,000 years available. A far cry from "millions of years"
If nuclear power becomes this common and available in our lifetimes then yes energy can be in a practical sense unlimited and negligible foot note in the economic equation.
However this power is not yet "available" (keyword) so until then energy is a huge part of the economic equation.
>We are not really energy constrained and simply using the available energy more efficiently can leave all parties better off on all but maybe billion year timelines.
You're talking about potential and things that are currently unavailable. I'm talking about history, the status quo and "available energy."
So we're not at odds here, just talking about different things.