I'm not sure I agree with that. When you factor in the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in rural areas to serve small populations, this equation may tip heavily the other way.
For very small populations, you are correct that it is not economical anywhere in the world. You can simply look at the total cost of something to determine fairly accurately how much total energy was consumed by it. There's no escaping that cost is ultimately a reflection of total energy consumption. It's very easy to determine by the higher cost that electric cars are currently less green than traditional designs. That organic apple at the grocery is more expensive because a lot of other apples were lost in production and more total energy was wasted. Almost always higher cost means more energy was consumed somewhere in its lifecycle, and more pollution was generated.