Comments on: As Energy Demands Grow, Efficiency is Top Priority
By Craig moore on 10-02-10
300 years of history says otherwise: http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2010/09/why_energy_efficiency_does_not.shtml
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One of the most curious facts about energy is that economies continue to use more of it even as they use it more efficiently. This strikes us as strange because it has become an article of faith that making cars, buildings, and factories more energy efficient is the key to cheaply and quickly reducing energy consumption, and thus pollution.
But energy experts have never seen this as particularly mysterious. As energy historian Vaclav Smil notes, “Historical evidence shows unequivocally that secular advances in energy efficiency have not led to any declines of aggregate energy consumption.” A group of economists beginning in the 1980s went further, suggesting that increasing the productivity of energy would increase economic growth and energy consumption. Efficiency advocates dismiss the evidence of rebound in energy use pointing to direct behavioral changes at the household or business level that are easiest to measure. But the most significant energy rebounds are indirect — in the production of energy, raw materials, and consumer goods — not in the “end use” consumer products.
Below, a leading energy economist, Harry Saunders, explains why energy efficiency does not decrease energy consumption in the way we conventionally understand it. In the process, Saunders clarifies the controversy over his recent co-authored study for the Journal of Physics, which reviews 300 years of lighting history to predict the impact of new solid-state lighting technologies (e.g. LEDs). Against the widespread belief that new lighting technology will reduce energy consumption, Saunders and his colleagues found that they will likely increase it — greatly expanding the global use of lighting in the process, especially in developing countries. Saunders clarifies some important questions, and explains the basics of “the rebound effect.”
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By Vud on 10-02-10
Careful Craig -
You’re getting awfully close to advocating for an Cap-and-Trade style intervention here.
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