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The cost of lighting has come down by a large amount. So looking at lighting in isolation, (and its attendant power consumption) we can see Jevon's Paradox hasn

The cost of lighting has come down by a large amount. So looking at lighting in isolation, (and its attendant power consumption) we can see Jevon's Paradox hasn't born out. From where I'm sitting as I write this, I can see 9 light bulbs turned on. These are bulbs that would have been 60W apiece 20 years ago, but are now about 7W each. They're all on and drawing a total of 63W. If they were incandescents, I'd probably have 4 of them off, and still be pulling 300W. So I definitely use more lighting now than I did when it was expensive, but the efficiency improvement is so good that my current "wasteful" consumption is 1/5th of what my "thrifty" usage would have been. At nighttime, I leave on my porch lights, patio lights, driveway lights, and lights in rooms I don't occupy. The entire house draws about 200W for lighting, which is what one room would have done in the old days. I'm not saying Jevon is wrong or anything, but there are efficiency gains that are so great, that some other limiting factor will prevent increased utilization from erasing those gains. In the case of light, my rooms can only be so bright. If light were literally free I don't think I'd add any more lamps.

dredmorbius 5y ago
I have friends whose habits were established by incandescent lighting. In a room with a floor lamp, cabinet lighting, third alcove lamp, and a desk lamp, they'll often turn off all but the latter. Joke is that it's the desk lamp at 50W that draws as much power as all the other lighting (LED) combined.
Jensson 5y ago
It is a paradox since it goes against what you normally expect, so normally it doesn't apply. It is just something to keep in mind, if you don't you can make horrible mistakes. Lets say you have a "cost-centre" at your company, they are evaluated based on how many resources they can save. Cost centres is the main example of Jevon's paradox not being heeded in the wild. When a department is seen as a cost centre and rewarded for reducing costs, then they will try to get as slow and cumbersome as possible to reduce others reliance on the department. If they became more efficient, people used them more so demand goes up, costs also goes up and the department gets lambasted for being wasteful.

dredmorbius 5y ago

I have friends whose habits were established by incandescent lighting. In a room with a floor lamp, cabinet lighting, third alcove lamp, and a desk lamp, they'll often turn off all but the latter. Joke is that it's the desk lamp at 50W that draws as much power as all the other lighting (LED) combined.

Jensson 5y ago

It is a paradox since it goes against what you normally expect, so normally it doesn't apply. It is just something to keep in mind, if you don't you can make horrible mistakes. Lets say you have a "cost-centre" at your company, they are evaluated based on how many resources they can save. Cost centres is the main example of Jevon's paradox not being heeded in the wild. When a department is seen as a cost centre and rewarded for reducing costs, then they will try to get as slow and cumbersome as possible to reduce others reliance on the department. If they became more efficient, people used them more so demand goes up, costs also goes up and the department gets lambasted for being wasteful.