It seems to me that it's normal that our overall demand for energy is growing. It's a failure of policy over a long period that has lead to these bullshit outcomes.
Consumer energy per capita in the u.s. has been flat for a long time and even declining. Increased demand for energy is in fact a reversal of prevailing trends over the past couple of decades.
Consider the average american life over the last 100 years and how power demands changed. We went from gas to induction stoves. Furnace to electric heating. From ice boxes to refrigerators. From high ceilings to AC units. From books to TVs and then to TVs in every room. Compute hardware wise most people are using probably 5% of their cpu to web browse.
Once we hit the 90s, what are even the sources for added consumption in American households? We hit all the big ticket power sucking items already, like refrigeration and AC.
I think when energy hits a certain price point and stays there for a long time it makes sense to try to squeeze more productivity out of the same quantity of energy, but then when energy comes down in cost it opens up possibilities that were cost prohibitive before. The short term trend was towards lower per capital use, but over the long term new cheaper forms of energy drive demand up.
