[Greenbuilding] Debunking Energy Efficency

Thu Feb 22 18:54:40 CST 2007

Yeah, Reuben!

BTW, Monbiot also refers to Jevons when explaining the Khazzoom-Brookes
Postulate. Monbiot further implies that this phenomenon arises from
capitalist consumer society.

Here's a quote from the book:

"The postulate works like this. As efficiency improves, people or companies
can use the same amount of energy to produce more services. This means that
the cost of energy for any one service has fallen. This has two effects. The
first is that the money you would otherwise have spent on energy is released
to spend on something else. The second is that as processes which use a lot
of energy become more efficient, they look more financially attractive than
they were before. So when you are deciding what to spend your extra money
on, you will invest in more energy-intensive processes than you would
otherwise have done. The extraordinary result is that, in a free market,
energy efficiency could increase energy use. ...The Khazzoom-Brookes
Postulate appears to explain why the corporations, by pursuing their own
cost-cutting interests, have not saved the planet."

He goes on to say that it's only a postulate and is fiercely debated.

****Three cheers for carbon rationing--.9 ton per person across the planet
will do it!!!!*****

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: Reuben Deumling
To: Rob Tom
Cc: Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance ; Greenbuilding
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Debunking Energy Efficency

I have to disagree with you Rob. Short--yes, but not entirely true to my
ears.

Jevon's Paradox refers to William Stanley Jevons' 1865 observation that as
James Watt's steam engines were able to go further on a given amount of coal
than earlier machines, more coal was mined to feed the increase in demand
for the services these more energy-efficient engines provided. He noted a
four-fold increase in England's population since the beginning of the 19th
Century and a 16-fold increase in the consumption of coal over the same
period.

We could add plenty of examples from our own experience. New US cars doubled
in fleet average fuel economy between 1975 and 1988, but we now burn more
gasoline per capita than we did when cars were "inefficient." On average,
new US refrigerators use roughly 1/4 as much energy as the average new model
did in the early 1970s, but we use only marginally less energy per capita to
power them today than we did then.

We can (and perhaps will) debate whether the pursuit of energy efficiency is
itself to blame for this poor showing, or if continuing increases in energy
consumption are due to factors unrelated to this, our preferred, strategy.
But regardless, I think it is fair to say that the long standing and
well-funded pursuit of energy efficiency in US policy circles has not so far
managed to reduce per capita, much less total, energy consumption. It may be
a useful strategy toward that end, but it is certainly not sufficient if our
goal is to actually reduce the number of kWhs or BTUs we burn in the course
of our individual and collective lives.

Energy efficiency is something that experts figure out and sell to us.
Energy conservation is something we often already know how to do ourselves.
It has a lot to do with habit, and usually requires little additional
hardware. I've found this list very useful in inspiring new energy
conservation tricks.

As an aside, 'energy intensity,' as I understand it, is generally used to
describe the ratio of energy to economic output--usually GDP. As such it is
an even less useful measure than energy efficiency because we know that GDP
can (almost always) be counted on to grow over time. If the amount of energy
consumed per $ of GDP falls (as it is asserted), this says preciously little
about how much energy is actually being consumed. The differential rate at
which the two in fact are growing may be of interest to economists and some
policy makers, but it doesn't help us figure out how to, say, reduce the
chances of/slow down/avoid global warming.

Reuben Deumling

On 2/22/07, Rob Tom < ArchiLogic at yahoo.ca> wrote:
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 ?