These are all good points and I don't disagree with you. It probably is worth pointing out that ever since about 1800 our civilization has had "the pedal to the metal" in terms of accelerating our demand for energy, i.e. an exponential rise in energy demand, and that demand has been consistently met and often exceeded - this is why we can afford to fill our personal cars with this precious fuel on a regular basis.

I think that a sufficiently forward-thinking civilization probably could base its energy production around biofuels, but a gallon of gasoline-equivalent would probably cost about a thousand dollars-equivalent. Building a skyscraper would be a project akin to manned space flight. Manned space flight would be completely out of the realm of possibility.