The idea that the universe is not losing energy seems to contradict the idea that entropy is always increasing. Entropy is an inverse measure of the concentration of energy, not the total energy. The total energy of the universe appears to be constant although the quality of energy is decreasing. An example of increased entropy would be the burning of natural gas to heat a pot of water. The very hot flame of the concentrated form of chemical energy known as natural gas is converted to heat through a process of combustion.
Heat is transferred into the water.
Those phenomena which are susceptible to observation and modeling by scientific methodology are reducible to explainable forces. Science does not address this issue but as humans, we certainly behave as though things such as love, anger, hate, faith, intuition, creativity, and relationship are real even though they are irreducible to physical and chemical laws with current technology. These are excellent questions. I thought we were supposed to think of questions, not answers. While external costs are harder to measure, analysts can make some reliable estimates.