The Efficiency Dilemma - If our machines use less energy, will we just use them more?

Annals of Environmentalism

David Owen - 27 December 2010

Efforts to improve energy efficiency can more than negate any environmental gains.

• Jevons Paradox (1865) - It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is a equivalent to a diminished consumption.
• If you increase the productivity of anything, you have the effect of reducing its implicit price, because you get more return for the same money.
• Rebound (current term)--increased energy consumption more than cancels out any energy savings as backfire.

As the ability to chill things has grown, so has the opportunity to buy chilled things--a potent positive feedback loop.

• Most of the electricity that powers refrigerators is generated by burning fossil fuels.
• The growth of American refrigerator volumes parallels American body-mass index.\

• New Yorkers throw out vegetable most often.
• When we throw away food, we discard the nutrients; we also throw away the energy required to keep it cold, as well as the energy that went into growing, harvesting, etc.
• According to a 2009 study, more than one quarter of US freshwater goes into producing food that is later discarded.

We now use as much energy to cool buildings as we did for everything in 1955.

The problem with efficiency gains is that we reinvest them in additional consumption---Paving roads makes travel easier, so we will drive further to get goods and live further away from work.