Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
The_Virginian wrote:
Aaron,
Your graph, and your bringing to most of us the atttention to the "Jevons" Concept; makes me wonder why we have an "Efficiency and Conservation" Section?
Is it not a lack of Efficiency and conservation into of itself? Keepingg in mind it's useless flab?
Because there is no short-term subsitute for conservation and efficiency if you can overcome Jevon's Paradox through tax or price controls.
On an individual basis, it can mean everything. In the big picture scheme of things, it may even increase use if it holds down rising prices post-peak. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:50 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
The_Virginian wrote:
Aaron,
Your graph, and your bringing to most of us the attention to the "Jevons" Concept; makes me wonder why we have an "Efficiency and Conservation" Section?
Is it not a lack of Efficiency and conservation into of itself? Keeping in mind it's useless flab?
It's because I don't just hand down forums from Mount Olympus...
They are created by consensus by our staff.
(pretty much)
Also, the C & E topics are very popular and widely misunderstood, so it's a learning opportunity.
And I don't agree that conservation means much even on an individual basis.
Oh you might save some money & be slightly more independent...
But I don't think a billion screamin Chinese are gonna give a crap.
However, in the future, when I rule the Earth from atop Reaper Mountain, conservation will make a difference.
My program of EcoReaping will ensure reaping opportunities for generations to come. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:46 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Aaron wrote:
Oh you might save some money & be slightly more independent...
But I don't think a billion screamin Chinese are gonna give a crap.
I agree. Individual conservation is a short-term short-lived fix that won't keep the Reaper away. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Doly wrote:
And what is supposed to be the "real" fix then?
Repeat as needed.
I have no idea... I fear that we will require a rather painful lesson before things change.
Human nature... simultaneously our best & worst quality. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:13 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Doly wrote:
And what is supposed to be the "real" fix then?
An ecological paradigm seems supported by the facts.
How do we get there?
Like Aaron, I have no idea.
Depending upon the rate and magnitide of change, it could be rather chaotic...to say the least. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:12 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Conservation and efficiency save me and my family money. We increase our chances of survival, we help the planet, allow others to live with the surplus we have created. There is enough for everyone's need, not their greed. If you have ever lived in the developing world you have seen your share of people who don't have enough to live on. Why make it worse?
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:29 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
There is a new post on Peak Oil Debunked about Jevon's Paradox and debunking it which is pretty easy to do (as it applies to Crude oi/fossil fuel). Here is the highlight of what the article said:
Quote:
A lady recently began to carpool to work. She went from spending $200 a month to around $25 a month by doing so. Even if gas goes back below $2 a gallon she will not stop carpooling.
Jevon's Paradox will have you believe that she will take that extra $175 a month that she is saving and spend it on other doodads that require all of the fuel that she is saving to produce.
I posted this on Peak Oil Debunked and have not got an answer back yet so I will post it here too as there are probalby a lot more doomers here than there that are willing to give it a whirl:
Quote:
...the lady was able to go from spending $200 a month on gas to around $25. At $2 a gallon, this person is not buring 87.5 gallons of gas a month. Please name me one "doodad" that exists that you can buy for $175 or less that burns through 87.5 gallons of gas to produce."
If you are able to answer this simple question you can prove Jevon's Paradox applies to oil/fossil fuel and that conservation will not matter. Please don't reply that people in the USA will not conserve as this is not an answer to the question. To avoid this, let's pretend the question assumes Peak Oil has happened and gas is $10 a gallon and the mass-majority of people WANT to conserve to save money.
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:34 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Here is another way to look at it....
From LATOC, each new car required the "equivalent" of 27-54 barrels of oil or about 1100-2000 gallons of gas. We will ignore the obvious "equivalant" EROEI error in this (the energy to make a car is not 100% fossil fuel) but will go with the worse case scenerio.....
From LATOC, it take 2000 gallons of gas to make a car (not for real, but what LATOC would like for you to believe if you don't take those 10 seconds to think with the Peak Oil blinders off). The average person drives about 12,000 miles per year.
Improving gas mileage from 20MPG to 40MPG (hybrids/diesel) would save about 300 gallons of gas a year or 4500 gallons over the average 15 year life of the car.
Even if a car truly took 2000 gallons of fuel (from LATOC) you are still saving 2500 gallons of gas from that one car over 15 years (of course it is more than this because LATOC quotes the "equivalent" energy required to make a car which is actually made with energy not only from fossil fuel, but electricity, natural gas, coal, etc. which is all figured in to give you an "equivalent"). Now multiply that by the 800 million vehilces on the road (800 x 2500 gallons) and we would save two trillion gallons of gas over 15 years. Keep in mind too, this is after you take out the "equivelant" fossil fuel required to manufacture those hybrid vehicles.
If we want to throw cost into it (being as Jevon's paradox says we will spend this month on other items), let's take a look at what we save by improving gas mileage:
On average, each person drives about 1000 miles per month. Based on this and gas being about $2 a gallon, we get the following:
1) At 20 MPG, we would spend about $100 a month on gas
2) At 25 MPG, we would spend about $80 a month on gas
3) At 30 MPG, we would spend about $67 a month on gas
4) At 40 MPG, we would spend about $50 a month on gas
5) At 100 MPG, we would spend about $20 a month on gas
So by trading in a gas guzzling vehicle that gets 20 MPG for one that gets 40 MPG, we would save a whooping $50 a month or $600 a year. Not a lot of money to reinvest (actually it would probably just go to pay the higher car payment for they hybrid). Now think about how much gas we saved over the 15 year life of that vehicle. There is no way possible with the small savings from conservation that we could possibly use all of the fuel we are conserving.
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:17 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Flow wrote:
Jevon's Paradox will have you believe that she will take that extra $175 a month that she is saving and spend it on other doodads that require all of the fuel that she is saving to produce.
No, Jevon's Paradox says that increases in efficiency leads to lower prices which increases consumption.
If fuel prices go down because people carpool, consumption will increase.
We have 150 years of emprical data to support this. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3670 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:43 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
MonteQuest wrote:
Flow wrote:
Jevon's Paradox will have you believe that she will take that extra $175 a month that she is saving and spend it on other doodads that require all of the fuel that she is saving to produce.
No, Jevon's Paradox says that increases in efficiency leads to lower prices which increases consumption.
If fuel prices go down because people carpool, consumption will increase.
We have 150 years of emprical data to support this.
And there is the crux of the paradox, it says nothing about what happens when increased conservation leads to price stabilization instead of price reduction.
Look at what happenned for three months because Europe and Japan shipped the USA there excess gasoline production and the US SPR dumped stockpiled petroleum into the market. Prices crashed 30% for the average consumer, but people have long enough memories that they didn't all run out and buy a new Hummer 1 gas hog. Now that winter has arrived prices have resumed their annual rise, seems likely that by Christmas we will be back at $2.50 in the USA. If SA is telling the truth and the mild demand destruction sets in from the low SUV sales prices MIGHT stabilise for a while. Well if I had my druthers they would, but I don't beleive they actually will. I beleive we will keep seeing a 40% year over year increase in fuel costs, which puts us around $3.00 for Christmas 2006 and over $4.00 for Christmas 2007.
As prices rise conservation, the low hanging fruit, will be grabbed and consumed quickly. The rough spot happens when the law of diminishing returns starts to bite towards the end of 2007. I will have my house insulated much better by then, and I already have my new super efficient furnace so I should be OK, my real dollar costs should rise at a lower than average rate. The same will not be true for those who already have a well insulated house with efficient heating, or who lack the financial wherewithal to improve what they do have as I am doing. I knew this house was a fixer-upper when I bought it, but the old folks who lived here 50 years thought it was good the way it was. A lot of people in new houses are overextended, when there energy costs double in 24 months that alone will kill the housing bubble if nothing else kills it first.
My viewpoint, it doesn't matter how much you conserve if supply is driving the price, because every bit you save someone else will spend. Prices will stabilize at the 'real cost' of oil, but where is the level where demand destruction stabilizes against supply decline? Economic markets are no less organic than an ecosystem, every market nich creates a void where something can fit in. Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Solar all have niches now, the future prices will detremine which niches grow and which stay static or shrink. I don't think conservation will lead to lower prices this time because supply constraints are the driving force, not consumer demand, obviating the power of Jevon's Paradox. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:12 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Not to be flippant with you, but I hope everyone here recognizes that it's the relative price changes which are the whole point of Jevon's argument.
That's why this idea of "price stabilization" is without merit.
All Jevon says is that "to the extent you make any useful commodity more affordable, you encourage it's consumption by that same margin."
Another way to put this is by looking at the difference between what any given commodity costs today, and what it would have cost absent the additional supplies which conservation & efficiency have provided.
And unless you plan on invading China, India, South America & Africa and force them to comply with your conservation plans, the net effect will be generating energy subsidies for these emerging energy consumers in the form of lower energy commodity prices.
This is why all efforts at conservation & efficiency are actually counterproductive, and lead us even further into the quagmire of Hubbert's Peak.
It is indeed this sobering analysis, coupled with the notion that so many believe otherwise, which makes me the doomer I am today.
I have said so many times here, but it bears repeating...
Be aware of peak oil.
Be afraid of how your neighbors will react to it. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6581 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:59 am Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
On a macro level the law seems obvious, but to simply say I have no macro solution and any micro solution can only be of limited help, is really no help at all, at least to my small mind.
If fossil fuel is a finite resource, peaks and decline will happen, there just is no way around it; Jevon will only be a footnote to the timeline.
But it seems just as obvious - at least to me, that there will be those who are less impacted than the next guy because they chose to limit their energy requirements.
As I’ve said before:
You don’t need to outrun the bear (perhaps a Panda in this case),
just the other guy.
Posted: Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:11 pm Post subject: Re: Jevon's Paradox Explained
Aaron wrote:
All Jevon says is that "to the extent you make any useful commodity more affordable, you encourage it's consumption by that same margin."... This is why all efforts at conservation & efficiency are actually counterproductive, and lead us even further into the quagmire of Hubbert's Peak.
Aaron,
What if you eliminate that margin through tax or price controls on the commodity conserved? Won't increases in efficiency and conservation be productive in reducing energy use then? In other words, no financial benefit.
Or, are we full circle...like, well...then what's the incentive to conserve?
Why bother? Only helps the big picture, not me or my business. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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