(TED Talk) Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. Well, let's not pretend that Lovins ignores Jevons

Must he address Jevons at length each time he speaks?

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_Jevons_Paradox

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Owen's counterfactual 2010 New Yorker article on energy "rebound" was demolished at the time by, among others, Dr. James Barrett of the Clean Economy Development Center, Dr. Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. David Goldstein of Natural Resources Defense Council, and myself . Cameron Burns and Michael Potts nicely summarized the key arguments here—the #1 Google hit for searches like "AmoryLovins+Jevons"—and RMI pursues the diverse "Jevons paradox" conversation at on our blog. A Times editor constructing a conversation on this theme could have easily found such references, leaving readers better-informed.

There is a very large professional literature on energy rebound, refreshed about every decade as someone rediscovers and popularizes this old canard. That literature supports neither Owen's view nor Prof. Matthew Kotchen's partial support that "rebound effects are potentially important." Real, yes; important, no. The price-elasticity and responding effects Owen cites, where measurable, are consistently minor—a theoretical nicety of little practical consequence.

James Watt's more-efficient steam engine did spark an industrial revolution that (as Stanley Jevons observed) created great wealth and burned more coal. But this is no proof that energy efficiency generally triggers economic growth that devours its savings (or more)—a "backfire" effect never yet observed. Rather, it shows that many disruptive technologies stimulate economic growth and wealth, sometimes sharply. Some disruptive technologies, like microchips and the Internet, incidentally save net energy even though they are not meant to be energy technologies; some disruptive energy technologies, like automobiles and jet airplanes, increase energy use, while others, like electric motors, probably decrease it, and still others, like electric lights, could do either depending on technology and metrics (which Owen's cited lighting analysis muddles); still other disruptive technologies that Owen doesn't criticize, like key advances in public health, mass education, and innovation, enormously increase wealth and have complex and indeterminate energy effects. Blaming wealth effects on energy efficiency has no basis in fact or logic.

To be sure, energy efficiency does modestly increase wealth, just as Owen's more efficient desk-lamp makes him slightly richer. I doubt this saving makes him use the lamp at least four times more (as would be needed to offset its energy savings), or that if it did, sitting longer at his desk would not displace other substantial energy-using activities. More likely his total energy use rose simply because he got richer: his writings and lectures have sold well to people who like his message, so he now has more stuff, uses it more, travels more, and probably doesn't reinvest much of his increased wealth in buying still more energy efficiency, which he thinks would frustrate his stated goal of environmental improvement.

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