Jevons: a 19th Century Zeno
In the 5th Century BCE a Greek philosopher, Zeno of Elea, concocted a series of paradoxes. In essence, they were all the same paradox (but let’s give him credit for more—he did put in a lot of work.)
The core of his most famous paradox has to do with traveling a given distance. Say you wish to walk out of a room where someone is discussing Jevons’ Paradox. The door is 16 feet away. First, you must walk 8 feet toward the door (half way), then 4 feet (half the remaining distance), then 2 feet and so on. The result is an "infinite progression" 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 …
Zeno’s proposition was that there is an infinite number of distances to be traveled, each of them half the distance of the previous one, and each of them takes some time to accomplish, therefore, you can never leave the room. Diogenes of Sinope supposedly proved Zeno’s conclusion false by standing up and walking.
Clearly, Zeno’s conclusion was false. (Even Zeno knew this.) However, Zeno works like a magician, distracting us with what appears to be logic, “Hmmm… you know… he might have something there… there is an infinite number of tasks to be accomplished…”
Jevons’ Paradox is akin to Zeno’s Paradoxes, but goes them one better. You see, while Zeno might have proposed that we can never truly save any energy, the proponents of Jevons’ Paradox propose that by saving energy, we actually use more!
Let’s try a quick thought experiment, following Jevon’s Paradox through. Let’s say I change all of the light bulbs in my house from incandescent bulbs to LED’s. Over time, this will save me a certain amount of money in energy costs. Let’s say it saves me $100. Jevons’ proponents say I will spend that $100, some of it I will spend by lighting my house more (since I can now afford to) and the rest I will spend on other things, like maybe my membership to DU.
Naturally, if I give money to DU, some of it will go to pay for things like servers, which require energy to run, some will go to an ISP, which requires energy to pump data through the internet, and some of it will go into the pockets of the admins, who will spend it on other things which use energy, and so on.
The proponents of Jevon’s Paradox tell us that while it may not be obvious at first (because it’s a very complex system) in the long run, a very large number of small increases in energy usage will add up, more than offsetting the energy I originally saved. (It’s another infinite progression, akin to Zeno’s.)
However, let’s go back to that $100. The proponents of Jevons’ want us to believe that because I saved $100 worth of energy, more than $100 worth of energy will be used.
So, here’s my question, “Where’s the additional money coming from to pay for the additional energy?”
= new reply since forum marked as read
You are trying to tie a misunderstood math "paradox" (which converges absolutely) to something entirely different.
So, here’s my question, “Where’s the additional money coming from to pay for the additional energy?”
Similarly, have you asked where the additional money comes from in Keynesian fiscal stimulus that is attributed to the "multiplier effect"?
This one is fatally mangled by irrelevant topics and a discrete math problem 
Was it the efficiency of the the Model T which led to its wide use?
BTW, to answer your question, probably not. Efficiency isn't *the only* thing that is going to cause wider use. Innovation and usefulness can too. This doesn't disprove Jevon's Paradox at all. Im not sure why you think it does, if you think it does.
Money becomes available to use for resource extraction or manufacturing either by fiat or by being spared within the economy through improved efficiency.
That money essentially goes to buy energy that is used in the extraction and manufacturing processes. Those processes increase the store of real wealth that then has to be reflected in the money supply. If the net wealth increase has a value greater than the money spared by efficiency, more money has to be created by fiat to cover the difference.
If we want our store of physical wealth to increase over time - to cover increases in both the world population and average standards of living - and efficiency improvements fall below the amount needed to do that (plus offsetting the "thermodynamic waste heat" of the economy - inflation), we will end up consuming more energy than we saved. We can't help but do that if we want our real wealth to grow or even stay stable, in the presence of global economic friction.
If we were to spare more money through efficiency than is required to maintain the world economy, that money will be invested and end up facilitating more extraction/manufacturing, which will consume more energy.
The second law of thermodynamics, especially in the presence of rising populations and rising expectations, turns the whole game into a canonical Red Queen's Race.
The key assumptions here are:
- "Real wealth" is created only by resource extraction or manufacturing (art and spreadsheets aren't "wealth"
;
- Money is at its root simply an abstraction of "real wealth"; and
- The second law of thermodynamics applies to the "energy" of the human system of civilization - i.e. money - in the same way that it applies to heat in physical systems.
Coal consumption in Britain skyrocketed when Watt invented a more efficient steam engine, and it continued to increase, as more efficient engines were developed. Other countries' production followed a similar pattern, based on when they started using steam engines.
Written by: Shakeb Afsah and Kendyl Salcito and Chris Wielga* • Jan 11, 2012
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Controlling for factors like electricity and gas prices, per capita income, variations in weather patterns, population density and economic structure, we used a multiple regression model (described in Appendix-1) to statistically verify if the quality of energy efficiency policies as measured by the ACEEE is associated with lower energy use per capita.
Using ACEEE’s 2009 data, we found that a 1% improvement in ACEEE’s energy efficiency score leads to an estimated 0.18% decrease in energy use per capita at the state-level in the US. This is visualized in Exhibit-6 as a downward sloping line depicting the long run average correlation between energy efficiency policy score and energy use per capita. As discussed in Appendix 1, a similar relationship between ACEEE’s energy efficiency score and energy per capita exists for the years 2007 and 2008. This finding confirms that the causal relationship between energy efficient policies and energy use per capita is not a one-year phenomenon but is consistent and statistically significant over time.
These new findings verify what the US Energy Information Administration has been putting forth for over a decade: energy efficiency policies are central to cutting emissions. Just last year the EIA published estimates on building efficiency improvements using best available technologies, but the agency noted that even with the best technology, policies would still need to be in place to promote efficiency. Data further confirm these findings—as shown in the Exhibit-7, California, which is among the most energy efficient states and has pursued efficiency policies since 1974, was able to put a lid on the average per capita electricity consumption for over three decades—in comparison electricity use per capita increased at an annual rate of 1.4% for the rest of the US. If Rebound effects were as rampant as claimed by the Breakthrough Institute, we would not find a robust relationship between energy efficiency policies and lower electricity use per capita trend.
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Over the years, oil use has consistently increased, in spite of increasing prices.
The claim is that increased efficiency causes increased consumption (rather than increased consumption simply being an ongoing trend.)
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/beating-the-energy-efficiency-paradox-part-i.html
Rocky Mountain Institute
Business / Corporate Responsibility
May 1, 2008
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Today's popularity of more efficient vehicles and green home retrofits means it is worth seriously considering if there is evidence for Jevons' Paradox -- or even a significant rebound effect -- that could dampen some of the enthusiasm for these technologies.
Luckily, we are observing only very small rebound effects (if any at all) in the United States. For example, we can look at household driving patterns: While total vehicle miles traveled have increased 16 percent between 1991 and 2001, there is no evidence that owners of hybrid vehicles drove twice as much just because their cars were twice as efficient.
For green buildings the evidence is very similar. From many case studies related to RMI's Built Environment work, we have not seen evidence that radically more efficient commercial buildings cause people to leave the lights on all night and set their office thermostats five degrees lower. In fact, energy savings in everything from office towers to schools have often been higher than projected. People do not seem to change their behaviors simply because they have a more efficient building.
Household appliances provide the best example that efficiency gains really do stick. Take refrigerators (which can use as much as 14 percent of a household's total energy). Until the late 1970s, the average size of our refrigerators increased steadily and then began leveling off. But, during the same period, the energy those refrigerators used started to decline rapidly. Today's Energy Star refrigerators are 40 percent more efficient than those sold even seven years ago. After all, there is a maximum size to the refrigerator you can easily put in a kitchen and a limit to the number of refrigerators you need in your house. In short, improvements in efficiency have greatly outpaced our need for more and larger storage spaces.
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I know that the price of oil keeps increasing overall. I asked:
Can you document that cheaper oil doesn't result in more people using oil?
IOW, when there is a significant reduction in the price of oil, does the economy react--over time--by using more of it?
To put it in the opposite manner, do quick rises in the price of oil cause less usage of oil (like less people traveling during summer because it costs more or economic contraction)?
Simple yes/no works for me.
Demonstrate that hybrids actually lower aggregate consumption of oil first.
it's up to you to answer them - with data.
First, refer to any life-cycle assessment. Here is a quick one:
[link:http://infohouse.p2ric.org/ref/47/46011.pdf|Comparison of Life-Cycle Analyses of Compact Fluorescent and
Incandescent Lamps Based on Rated Life of Compact Fluorescent Lamp]
Use an altered assumption (because all life-cycle assessments use assumptions to create data) that the Denver, CO consumer has a solar panel. Now the production in Shanghai, China and shipment emissions are all we must consider. Edge, incandescent by the data.
The more "efficient" product must operate over a certain amount of time, with energy beyond some carbon-intense threshold, to pay its production debt back. This is sort of an interesting idea....would thorium reactors in America render CFLs obsolete to their incandescent parents?
In any case, way back to the original topic. People who say, "its complicated" might be correct. It is complicated. Both the production process and the increased economic activity (that causes GDP growth) make efficient items very complicated.
Let's analyze the actual quote: "more and more energy to produce less and less efficiency savings (diminishing returns)"
The implication of the quote iis that each successive efficiency innovation produces less of a return, because efficiency gains can only be asymptotic to 100% (or conversely that energy use can only be asymptotic to 0).
Here's an example:
In the 20 years from 1972 to 1992 refrigerator energy consumption dropped by about 1200 kWh/year, or about 60%. In the following 20 years from 1992 to 2012 consumption dropped by only 250 kWh/year, or 33%. The energy savings are diminishing over time, even as the efficiency keeps increasing.
They prove optimism has no solution. 