In the energy world, it's been observed countless times on many different scales and timeframes. Every single item in the typical American household has seen hu

In the energy world, it's been observed countless times on many different scales and timeframes. Every single item in the typical American household has seen huge improvements in efficiency in my lifetime (lightbulbs, fridges, heat pumps, to name the most prominent) but the average consumption of electricity has increased in that time. It's really quite intuitive - calling it a "paradox" is a disservice to the simplicity of the idea. If an energy-intensive technology exists and is generally useful, there will be some demand for it. If there is enough demand, market forces will invest in efficiency which drives down the total cost of ownership. And when prices go down, demand increases. Framed this way, it would be hard to imagine a case where the market put forth the effort to make a technology more efficient and it failed to drive up demand. It's an inevitable consequence of market economics - hardly what one would call a "paradox".