[Greenbuilding] Debunking Energy Efficency: Khazoom-Brookes Postulate

[Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance]

The energy efficiency "law" is called the Khazoom-Brookes Postulate. The book is "Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning." You can only get it mail order form the UK or Canada. It will be available in the US in July. Monbiot was surprised and dismayed by the postulate, as well.

Mary Bull, Co-director
Greenwood Earth Alliance, Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org
Chalice Farm and Sustainable Living Center, 748 Montgomery Rd, Sebastopol CA 95472
415-731-7924 - 415-509-1188 chalicenew at earthlink.net
 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ted Inoue 
  To: Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance 
  Cc: Greenbuilding 
  Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 4:07 PM
  Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Debunking Energy Efficency


  Would one of you please give a specific reference to this research. I've googled quite a bit and reached dead ends because there are so many hits for George Monbiot. I remember reading about this theory some time ago but would like to go back and review it in more detail. 

  In spite of my ignorance of this particular theory, I am most skeptical of how generalizable the theory is and fear that a sound economic theory has been improperly extrapolated. While it may in fact be 'proven' by economic and sociological studies that as products and services become less expensive, people keep their overall spending constant, hence increasing consumption, it does not follow that one can extrapolate this indefinitely. I would be extremely surprised if this 'law' was shown to be linear over all values. 

  Applied to energy efficiency, it could indeed be true that increasing an auto's efficiency by, say 10% results in the owners driving somewhat more because energy is seen as cheap. However, that does NOT imply that increasing efficiency by 20% or 50% or 80% will result in a proportionally larger amount of consumption. Quite often, people look at a small segment of a graph that shows a statistically linear dependency and conclude that the sections outside of the measured region follows the same rules. 

  Anyway, as noted, I'd like to see the original source material so that I can comment on the particularls of the study.

  Thanks!


  On 2/22/07, Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance <chalicenew at earthlink.net> wrote:
    Please read Monbiot, or some of the other comments on this list: Auto
    fuel-efficiency leads to more driving; manufacturing efficiency leads to
    more manufacturing...and increased use of fuel/energy and emissions.


    Mary Bull, Co-director
    Greenwood Earth Alliance, Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
    252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org
    Chalice Farm and Sustainable Living Center, 748 Montgomery Rd, Sebastopol CA 
    95472
    415-731-7924 - 415-509-1188 chalicenew at earthlink.net


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Rob Tom" < ArchiLogic at yahoo.ca>
    To: "Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance" <chalicenew at earthlink.net>;
    "Greenbuilding" < GREENBUILDING at listserv.repp.org>
    Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 12:14 PM
    Subject: Re:Debunking Energy Efficency


    On Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:08:40 -0500, Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance
    < chalicenew at earthlink.net> wrote:

    > I question the whole Energy Efficiency as God thing. Not wasting energy
    > is an appealing notion, but does it really come close to solving the
    > problem?


    Short answer: Yes

    Energy intensity is directly related to and directly reflects resource
    depletion (and hence habitat destruction), air and water pollution (and
    hence species destruction), greenhouse gas production and hence global 
    warming (and hence all non-cockroach life on this planet destruction).

    Reducing energy intensity (ie energy efficiency) includes reducing
    embodied energy and  long-term operating energy.

    So which aspect of the "problem" is not addressed by implementing energy 
    efficiency measures ?



    === * ===
    Rob Tom
    Kanata, Ontario, Canada
    <A r c h i L o g i c   at  c h a f f y a h o o   dot   c a >
    winnow the chaff from my edress in your reply



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