I think at one point I looked at the paper itself...or memory fails.
The 9.7 mW number got me distracted right off the bat because it's such an impossibly low number -that's a bag of watches, less than a metabolic rate, and the units...per...? and I couldn't understand where it all came from. The error of +/- .3 mW? Measurements of human activity on that scale just simply don't have that level of precision. The problems only got worse when trying to apply his dollar value to the rest of the world.
Nonetheless, there were some interesting ideas, like "the 1990 power dollar" (which led to other thought tangents), and a maintenance minimum is a very valuable idea. If there are energy constants that apply to historical periods or different cultures, I'm interested. I just got to the the point where I didn't trust his work, especially when it seemed he was trying to sell me a power plant. I don't know where I'd put it, and I want to buy less, not more.
And there was the business of direct application of physical laws to human behavior. It's not that humans aren't existentially constrained, but it's risky business to leap from one to the other. The intermediate steps, the how, where and when, have to be nailed down. Atoms have identical interactive rates and properties of interaction everywhere. People don't.
We're more likely to find common ground with Jevon's Paradox, though I should point out that it applies within an existing economy and infrastructure. Between different stable economies and infrastructures, your mileage may vary, literally.
About ready to post, but in looking at your toe chart again, I think the three plateaus need names. How about Rural/Ag/Horses on the left, Urbanized/Coal/Rail for the center, and Sprawl/Fossil/Cars for the right? It's a start, but the names need to be catchier.
= new reply since forum marked as read