Thanks for your more positive than usual story. I stopped reading at the above point as I see an error invalidating your analysis.
This is not something necessarily contradicting Tom's work, who you quote, but maybe something Tom has missed.
It should not come as a surprise if I have uncovered more of the energy problem than maybe Tom has, in the time I've spent on it, given my own qualifications and experience, and I am using formal Systems Engineering tools and techniques that Tom might not have access to, or any experience with. I can tell you also having spent some time doing PhD candidate work, working with academics doing academic research, not many academics have these skills either, it is a very highly paid consultant specialism, which I've chosen to apply to the energy problem voluntarily for six years so far, unpaid, unless the books I am developing on the subject might sell at all.
Neither you nor Tom has mathematically signed the energy showing which direction it travels in, to or from the planet.
This is important, because when added to the planet, this is creation and temperature reduction by definition, fully sustainable, we can't have enough of it if we are truly pro life.
The opposite applies when it is removed from the planet, removed from use, this is temperature increase by definition, the conversion of any non heat energy field or material to heat, the same heat as would have existed if the material or field had never been created by us or nature in the first place.
The practical problem of expansion of population is not so much a problem if the population is net-creating, instead of net-destroying, as we are now.
We obviously have to move to net-creating.
How that will pan out in population growth is anyone's guess, I don't see why it would be any different than the growth of any photosynthetic organism. It grows to whatever size is optimal in its environment for it to impart maximum energy from the sun to Earth (Positive energy flow!)
Domestic and community based solar hydrogen, with all money issued as solar indexed stimulus, all controlled by a grand controller capable of doing the job, is where I see the only solution, which is fully dictated by the problem.
I don't think we are getting much leeway there, the more analysis we do on the system, the clearer this becomes.
Obviously I am going to recommend anyone not quite getting the whole picture yet, should buy my books, this is the easiest method to get up to speed. Much easier than wading through the 350 odd stories I've done in Medium on the subject.