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> 1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do

> 1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more. I'm not sure I'd call this a "fail"; U.S. domestic energy usage per capita has actually fallen slightly since 1990, despite a massive explosion of new electronics and personal devices. (The EU has experienced a 1% per capita growth in energy consumption over the same period.) People are certainly doing it more, but -- so far -- the recent emphasis on increased efficiency has been keeping this demand from translating into an increased demand for energy. If improving efficiency alone can entirely halt growing demands for energy, then that's half the battle right there in reducing consumption.

saurik 13y ago
Could this not be caused by increased income disparity, rather than energy use efficiencies? I would be interested in looking at people throughout the years with some kind of comparable inflation-adjusted income to see how their energy usage has changed over the years.
- AnthonyMouse 13y ago
  There is also the matter of rising energy costs. When people having less money + oil being more expensive does nothing better than keep consumption at approximately the same level, it doesn't leave much left to claim as the benefit of efficiency. Mind you efficiency is still great because it allows us to derive more benefit for the same price (or the same level of resources), but it does nothing for climate change.
  - thaumaturgy 13y ago
    Domestic energy usage includes electricity, which is not significantly produced by petroleum (about 1% in the U.S.), so I don't see evidence that the rising cost of oil has had a significant impact on energy consumption. The 2007-2008 financial crisis and subsequent economic recession were specifically mentioned as factors in the reduction of energy demand in the U.S. (and EU, if I remember right), but growth in energy demand had already started to decline before then. The University of Michigan in 2007 started trying to follow the average MPG of cars sold in the U.S.; although I'm not familiar with their methodology, they've found a 4.5 MPG increase from 2007 to 2013, from 20.8 MPG to 24.6, for all cars, light trucks, minivans, SUVs, etc. So, people would have to be driving significantly more now for those gains in efficiency to not contribute to reduced oil consumption, and driving significantly more doesn't really work well with an economic recession. Have a look at the chart at http://www.investingdaily.com/13503/oil-demand-emerging-markets-follow-the-american-roadmap/ http://www.investingdaily.com/13503/oil-demand-emerging-mark...: U.S. per capita oil consumption has been flat since about the 80s, a trend that transcends economic recessions and political conflicts. I see no evidence at all for "Jevon's Paradox". Everything I can find about it suggests that it's a good-sounding economic theory that hasn't yet been comprehensively checked against available statistics.
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      > Domestic energy usage includes electricity, which is not significantly produced by petroleum (about 1% in the U.S.), so I don't see evidence that the rising cost of oil has had a significant impact on energy consumption. And what about the rising cost of electricity? > I see no evidence at all for "Jevon's Paradox". Jevon's Paradox is a straight forward corollary of supply and demand. If you make the cost per mile go down, all else equal, the "demand for" miles driven will go up, which will erode if not exceed the savings from higher efficiency. The last decade is not representative because the "all else equal" bit is totally off: Gas prices have doubled from ~$1.80 in 2004 to ~$3.60 today and we've had a global financial crisis that suppresses demand for everything.
      - thaumaturgy 13y ago
        > And what about the rising cost of electricity? See, this is why I prefer to argue from data in policy discussions. The cost of electricity has been flat or declining since 1990. I used the data from http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm, specifically http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/avgprice_annual.xls http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/avgprice_annual.xl.... I found that the EIA publishes prices in nominal amounts, i.e., not adjusted for inflation. So, I used the inflation calculator at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm, and then I plotted electricity prices from 1990 to 2012. That chart is at https://infogr.am/electricity-prices-are-flat https://infogr.am/electricity-prices-are-flat. The yellow line is the raw data from the EIA: the average retail price, in cents per kilowatt-hour, of electricity for all regions and markets. The red line is the inflation-adjusted retail price in cents of the same. (Interesting aside: at a glance, it looks like it's almost entirely the unregulated service providers which are skewing the price of electricity upward.) > Jevon's Paradox is a straight forward corollary of supply and demand. A corollary is not data! This is exactly why arguing from ideology is bad: you found something that sounds good, and you believed it, and you never checked to see if it was true. I insist that you find some data to support your argument, because so far, every single bit of data I can find suggests that Jevon's Paradox is complete bunk. (aside: "annoyed" is my username there not because of this discussion, but because of the annoying way that infogr.am handles account setup.) edit: after thinking about it a bit, I think residential electricity usage for lighting should be a great test case for Jevon's Paradox. Although residential lighting is only responsible for something like 1% of domestic electricity usage, there has still been a remarkable change in the efficiency of residential lighting since 1970. If Jevon's Paradox is true, we should see a flat or increased demand for residential electricity for lighting over the same period; if it is not true, as I suspect, we should see an overall decreased demand for electricity for residential lighting. That is: if you're right, then more efficient bulbs should mean that people are leaving the lights on more often or are adding more lighting to their homes, roughly in proportion to the increase in efficiency. I chose residential lighting because the annual costs are relatively low, compared to heating and cooling (so trends should be resistant to changes in the economy), because bulb efficiency has changed quite a lot over the last several decades, and because more efficient bulbs have been accessible to people in most economic tiers. Unfortunately, although I can find current data on residential electricity usage for lighting, I haven't been able to find any historic figures.

saurik 13y ago

Could this not be caused by increased income disparity, rather than energy use efficiencies? I would be interested in looking at people throughout the years with some kind of comparable inflation-adjusted income to see how their energy usage has changed over the years.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago
There is also the matter of rising energy costs. When people having less money + oil being more expensive does nothing better than keep consumption at approximately the same level, it doesn't leave much left to claim as the benefit of efficiency. Mind you efficiency is still great because it allows us to derive more benefit for the same price (or the same level of resources), but it does nothing for climate change.
- thaumaturgy 13y ago
  Domestic energy usage includes electricity, which is not significantly produced by petroleum (about 1% in the U.S.), so I don't see evidence that the rising cost of oil has had a significant impact on energy consumption. The 2007-2008 financial crisis and subsequent economic recession were specifically mentioned as factors in the reduction of energy demand in the U.S. (and EU, if I remember right), but growth in energy demand had already started to decline before then. The University of Michigan in 2007 started trying to follow the average MPG of cars sold in the U.S.; although I'm not familiar with their methodology, they've found a 4.5 MPG increase from 2007 to 2013, from 20.8 MPG to 24.6, for all cars, light trucks, minivans, SUVs, etc. So, people would have to be driving significantly more now for those gains in efficiency to not contribute to reduced oil consumption, and driving significantly more doesn't really work well with an economic recession. Have a look at the chart at http://www.investingdaily.com/13503/oil-demand-emerging-markets-follow-the-american-roadmap/ http://www.investingdaily.com/13503/oil-demand-emerging-mark...: U.S. per capita oil consumption has been flat since about the 80s, a trend that transcends economic recessions and political conflicts. I see no evidence at all for "Jevon's Paradox". Everything I can find about it suggests that it's a good-sounding economic theory that hasn't yet been comprehensively checked against available statistics.
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    > Domestic energy usage includes electricity, which is not significantly produced by petroleum (about 1% in the U.S.), so I don't see evidence that the rising cost of oil has had a significant impact on energy consumption. And what about the rising cost of electricity? > I see no evidence at all for "Jevon's Paradox". Jevon's Paradox is a straight forward corollary of supply and demand. If you make the cost per mile go down, all else equal, the "demand for" miles driven will go up, which will erode if not exceed the savings from higher efficiency. The last decade is not representative because the "all else equal" bit is totally off: Gas prices have doubled from ~$1.80 in 2004 to ~$3.60 today and we've had a global financial crisis that suppresses demand for everything.
    - thaumaturgy 13y ago
      > And what about the rising cost of electricity? See, this is why I prefer to argue from data in policy discussions. The cost of electricity has been flat or declining since 1990. I used the data from http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm, specifically http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/avgprice_annual.xls http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/avgprice_annual.xl.... I found that the EIA publishes prices in nominal amounts, i.e., not adjusted for inflation. So, I used the inflation calculator at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm, and then I plotted electricity prices from 1990 to 2012. That chart is at https://infogr.am/electricity-prices-are-flat https://infogr.am/electricity-prices-are-flat. The yellow line is the raw data from the EIA: the average retail price, in cents per kilowatt-hour, of electricity for all regions and markets. The red line is the inflation-adjusted retail price in cents of the same. (Interesting aside: at a glance, it looks like it's almost entirely the unregulated service providers which are skewing the price of electricity upward.) > Jevon's Paradox is a straight forward corollary of supply and demand. A corollary is not data! This is exactly why arguing from ideology is bad: you found something that sounds good, and you believed it, and you never checked to see if it was true. I insist that you find some data to support your argument, because so far, every single bit of data I can find suggests that Jevon's Paradox is complete bunk. (aside: "annoyed" is my username there not because of this discussion, but because of the annoying way that infogr.am handles account setup.) edit: after thinking about it a bit, I think residential electricity usage for lighting should be a great test case for Jevon's Paradox. Although residential lighting is only responsible for something like 1% of domestic electricity usage, there has still been a remarkable change in the efficiency of residential lighting since 1970. If Jevon's Paradox is true, we should see a flat or increased demand for residential electricity for lighting over the same period; if it is not true, as I suspect, we should see an overall decreased demand for electricity for residential lighting. That is: if you're right, then more efficient bulbs should mean that people are leaving the lights on more often or are adding more lighting to their homes, roughly in proportion to the increase in efficiency. I chose residential lighting because the annual costs are relatively low, compared to heating and cooling (so trends should be resistant to changes in the economy), because bulb efficiency has changed quite a lot over the last several decades, and because more efficient bulbs have been accessible to people in most economic tiers. Unfortunately, although I can find current data on residential electricity usage for lighting, I haven't been able to find any historic figures.