Jevons Paradox and The Fallacy of "Benign Consumption"

This weekend's Wall Street Journal has a piece by author David Owen on "the Prius Fallacy: Pretending that more 'benign' consumption is good for the environment."

It has some wonderful illustrations of the Jevons Paradox, or how more efficiency leads to more, not less, consumption.  It's short and worth reading through, but here are a couple of choice quotes,

"A favorite trick of people who consider themselves friends of the environment is reframing luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity.  A new car, a solar-powered swimming-pool heater, a 200-mile-an-hour train that makes intercity travel more pleasant and less expensive, better-tasting tomatoes—these are the sacrifices we're prepared to make for the future of the planet.  Our capacity for self-deception can be breathtaking."

and

"Even when we act with what we believe to be the best of intentions, our efforts are often at cross-purposes with our goals.  Increasing the efficiency of lighting encourages us to illuminate more.  Relieving traffic congestion reduces the appeal of public transit and fuels the growth of suburban sprawl.  A robust market for ethanol exacerbates global hunger by diverting cropland from the production of food."

As for "reframing luxury consumption preferences as gifts to humanity," I developed a whole business plan using that theme.

The Jevons Paradox Reviewed

Some folks over at the Breakthrough Institute take on a a review of the "rebound effect", or the idea that some of the gains from energy efficiency efforts are lost through additional energy consumption.  We call that phenomenon by its proper name, the Jevons Paradox.

Undernews: EPA to Cause Electricity Price Spike

Kudos to the Chicago Tribune for covering an important story that few others will touch:  coming EPA regulations will cause electricity prices to skyrocket.

The headline, "Consumers' electric bills likely to spike as coal plants close" hints at the problem, but the paper immediately fingers the culprit,

"Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.  The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation's electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered."

"What 'pending environmental regulations'?", you ask?  The Tribune does not quite dig that deep.  "Who is issuing these regulations?"  A careful reader will go away uninformed.

But it does point out that there is more than your electric bill at stake, everything that uses electricity will cost more, including schools.  Not to worry, as always "energy efficiency" will save us, as long as no one tells William Stanley Jevons.

Jevons Paradox Strikes Again

The Baltimore Sun catches up to old news from Sweden.

Do drivers with "green cars" put on more miles?

In Sweden, the answer is "yes".  Another example of the Jevons Paradox at work.  And it's not just that vehicle miles traveled increased, but total sector emissions increased, even with cleaner cars on the road.

(Via InstaPundit)

When Energy Efficiency Sullies the Environment (Bumped)

The New York Times is the unlikely source for this provocative headline.  Yes, you guessed it, it's the Jevons Paradox.

All the News That's Fit to Print,

“Efficiency advocates try to distract attention from the rebound effect by saying that nobody will vacuum more because their vacuum cleaner is more efficient,” Mr. Shellenberger said.  “But this misses the picture at the macro and global level, particularly when you consider all the energy that is used in manufacturing products and producing usable energy like electricity and gasoline from coal and oil.  When you increase the efficiency of a steel plant in China, you’ll likely see more steel production and thus more energy consumption.”

More on the Jevons' Paradox

From David Owen in The New Yorker back in December.  Subscription required, but you can read enough to get the gist of his thesis.

From Jevons himself in 1865,

“It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption.  The very contrary is the truth.”

The Jevons Paradox

The Jevons Paradox is the phenomenon described by English economist William Stanley Jevons.  Simply stated, if we learn how to use a resource more efficiently, it will lead to more use of that same resource, not less.  Jevons first described this phenomenon back in 1865.

The Scotsman newspaper has rediscovered the principle, in the modern "carbon footprint" controversy.

(Via Mark Steyn)