A large amount of very cheap energy could have uses that we haven't thought of yet. Sometimes you need a supply of ingredients before inspiration strikes. Just think what could have happened if the British government had not been so short sighted and if Babbage had not been so difficult to deal with. But then although Ada Lovelace did make some remarkably prescient suggestions no one had any real idea what really cheap computing could do.

Remember "Quantity has a quality all its own", but what that quality is isn't always easy to tell before you have it.