Right now it takes many orders of magnitude more energy.
When electricity was first being invented for human utility, I bet it took several orders of magnitude more energy to package it than to simply light a candle, for example.
Or when candles were first invented, it took several orders of magnitude more energy to create one than to keep a campfire going. Etc.
Right now we're at the "invent a candle" stage, and talking about the "hydroelectric dam" stage, so it's hard to imagine. But it's far from impossible.
When electricity was first being invented for human utility, I bet it took several orders of magnitude more energy to package it than to simply light a candle, for example.
Or when candles were first invented, it took several orders of magnitude more energy to create one than to keep a campfire going. Etc.
Right now we're at the "invent a candle" stage, and talking about the "hydroelectric dam" stage, so it's hard to imagine. But it's far from impossible.