Sorry…
http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2011/03/21/talk-of-the-jevons-paradox-is-getting-tired-energy-efficiency-no-matter-how-you-slice-it-is-a-good-thing/
[font face=Serif][font size=5]Talk of the Jevons paradox is getting tired. Energy efficiency, no matter how you slice it, is a good thing.[/font]
[font size=3]Eric Wesoff of GTM Research has a
guest blog post on GE’s Ecomagination site titled “Will efficiency lead to more power consumption?” It touches on the idea, first proposed by economist William Stanley Jevons in 1885, that technologies designed to make our use of energy more efficient work to increase, not decrease, overall power consumption. This Jevons paradox, or energy rebound effect, is often used by folks who want to undermine policy efforts aimed at promoting energy efficiency. Wesoff, it should be pointed out, is simply posing the question to encourage discussion.
Does the introduction of new energy-efficient technologies make us use more of something we might not otherwise use, thereby negating efficiency gains? There certainly is evidence that, for example, people drive more when they’re in more fuel-efficient vehicles. But beyond The Breakthrough Institute, it’s generally believed the rebound effect is in the area of 10 per cent and that there is still a healthy net benefit to introducing more efficiency into vehicles. Certainly, there are specific examples we can find that show the rebound effect is higher, but there are far more examples — in my view — where it’s likely to be far lower. I don’t buy, for example, that introducing more efficient lighting technologies will lead us to leave the lights on more. Yes, communities and cities will grow and that will increase electricity demand for lighting, but on a per-capita basis will we use more? Maybe, for some, if the price of power stays the same or falls, but that’s not the case. The fact is, the widespread introduction of LED lighting will lead to a dramatic overall reduction in energy use on a per capita basis, and we can’t blame energy efficiency on growth that is likely to happen anyway.
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