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Technology never ceases to amaze though. Just last week I replaced the 12 50 watt spotlights in my kitchen with 42 watts total worth of LEDs. For twenty dolla

Technology never ceases to amaze though. Just last week I replaced the 12 50 watt spotlights in my kitchen with 42 watts total worth of LEDs. For twenty dollars. You can't tell the difference except that maybe it's a bit brighter in there. That was something I wouldn't have predicted being able to do 10 years ago. If something changes in the next 30 years that make this whole climate change panic look like a bunch of silly overreaction, I won't be all that surprised.

larkery 10y ago
Unfortunately, the evidence so far: - A consistent exponential growth in emissions - A consistent improvement in GDP/energy and a mild improvement in energy/CO2 raises the question: can technical efficiency gains reduce emissions? If so, can they do so rapidly enough to prevent catastrophe. This question has been open since Jevons wrote about the use of coal in the Empire, but it is certainly not cut-and-dried. In the case of your spotlights, there are several places for a rebound effect: - You have more spare money; you spend that money on something else, which (perhaps) causes some emissions - You have avoided using some electricity, lowering the cost of electricity. This renders electricity useful for some other customer for whom it was previously marginal And so on. For efficiency gains alone to work, the new technology will have to be astounding enough to reduce the cost of energy below the marginal production cost for all the existing sources, and to allow us to chuck away all of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure without discomfort. Otherwise we will just use astounding new technology along with all our old technologies, and do more stuff. Efficiency gains (which will come, and are welcome and necessary) need to be coupled with a political limit on extraction of fuels to avoid this outcome, in my opinion.
mikeash 10y ago
Lighting is pretty small potatoes compared to transportation and agriculture and climate control. Your efficiency improvements, while great, are vastly outweighed by increases in global population and standards of living. If you were to wave a magic wand and put a complete stop to human CO2 emissions today, the consequences of climate change would still be felt for decades. Never mind some technological change in the next 30 years, we needed something in the last 30 years. It's too late to stop it now, the only question is how much it can be mitigated, and how to deal with the consequences.

larkery 10y ago

Unfortunately, the evidence so far: - A consistent exponential growth in emissions - A consistent improvement in GDP/energy and a mild improvement in energy/CO2 raises the question: can technical efficiency gains reduce emissions? If so, can they do so rapidly enough to prevent catastrophe. This question has been open since Jevons wrote about the use of coal in the Empire, but it is certainly not cut-and-dried. In the case of your spotlights, there are several places for a rebound effect: - You have more spare money; you spend that money on something else, which (perhaps) causes some emissions - You have avoided using some electricity, lowering the cost of electricity. This renders electricity useful for some other customer for whom it was previously marginal And so on. For efficiency gains alone to work, the new technology will have to be astounding enough to reduce the cost of energy below the marginal production cost for all the existing sources, and to allow us to chuck away all of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure without discomfort. Otherwise we will just use astounding new technology along with all our old technologies, and do more stuff. Efficiency gains (which will come, and are welcome and necessary) need to be coupled with a political limit on extraction of fuels to avoid this outcome, in my opinion.

mikeash 10y ago

Lighting is pretty small potatoes compared to transportation and agriculture and climate control. Your efficiency improvements, while great, are vastly outweighed by increases in global population and standards of living. If you were to wave a magic wand and put a complete stop to human CO2 emissions today, the consequences of climate change would still be felt for decades. Never mind some technological change in the next 30 years, we needed something in the last 30 years. It's too late to stop it now, the only question is how much it can be mitigated, and how to deal with the consequences.