Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:46 pm Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
kaktus wrote:
monte:
Quote:
If the goal is to reduce overall consumption, 9which is the crux of the debate) it matters not what you use it for.
Not sure I got that one. you seem to say that if we want to reduce consumption we must reduce consumption. I can understand that. But even if we say it is politically impossible to be restrictive all consumption isn't necessarily 100% totally Pol Pot evil, is it? .
Ah, but you see, this all came about because efficiency gains were being touted as a way to meet demand when supply declines. Even if you spend the efficiency gain on "good consumption" supply cannot meet demand.
No net reduction.
Quote:
I have got the concept of "shadow effect" but I dont think it was "proved" in that oil drum thread there is a natural law saying that that the money saved on efficiency will eventually end up buying the same amount of fuel
No, it might be used to consume even more energy. I think he made the point that it balances out.
But it is hard to quantify.
Check out this:
Linky _________________ 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: Sep 06, 2006 Posts: 85 Location: Stockholm
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:21 am Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
Monte
Quote:
Ah, but you see, this all came about because efficiency gains were being touted as a way to meet demand when supply declines.
Ah, we have been in this debate before!
Supply always meets demand. You still stick to your own definition of demand. The point of equilibrium for a certain commodity change but thats another thing. And you dont separate different energy sources.
the example I can come up with that is close to totally inelastic in demand is insulin, because as a diabetes person you buy it at any price since you die without it, and that is still within its limits.
If gas is to expensive for me to drive as much I used to I will buy something else, perhaps a tennis racket. But then you say that the money sent into the economy will buy gas for the money I conserved so that the amount of gas consumed is the same. And thats where we don't agree. there are -substitutes- to gas for my SUV. I can decide to play tennis or take a walk in the mountains using the train system that luckily was in place before the peak oil crunch hit.
Another example. The paper manufactories can choos a more energy intensive production or a more chemical intensive one. the cost of the different inputs steers your decision.
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
kaktus wrote:
Ah, we have been in this debate before!
Supply always meets demand.
Utter nonsense. Energy is not just any commodity. It is up there with air, water, and food...and insulin.
You must have it.
You must have it to even be more efficient in it's use.
Demand destruction, due to price, will never offset the new demand for energy until there is an economic collapse.
Look at China and India. 11.9% growth in China. Using the rule of 70, that means their economic consumption will double in 5.8 years.
We hope to consume 120 mbpd in 2019. We will need to produce 200 mbpd to meet that demand and offset existing decline.
Supply isn't meeting demand right now. _________________ 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: Sep 06, 2006 Posts: 85 Location: Stockholm
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 4:56 am Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
OK, I got your view. I learnt some. I'm sure you mean good.
Perhaps you want something to think about for the weekend: Has supply of oil met demand the last 50 years? I mean, since its only now that supply seem to peak at the same time as demand (that is your understanding of it) is increasing? Have people in poor countries like Afghanistan got their *demand* satisfied? As you say that "energy is like air" they must have, right? if they haven't, it must be because they so stupid they dont realize it.
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:18 am Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
kaktus wrote:
Perhaps you want something to think about for the weekend: Has supply of oil met demand the last 50 years? I mean, since its only now that supply seem to peak at the same time as demand (that is your understanding of it) is increasing? Have people in poor countries like Afghanistan got their *demand* satisfied? As you say that "energy is like air" they must have, right? if they haven't, it must be because they so stupid they dont realize it.
Say what? We don't need energy to survive? Like air, we can just stop using it?
And this thinking my friends, is why energy illiteracy is going to be an obstacle to a sustainable future. That, and an inability to think systematically, along with flat earth economics.
If energy demand on the scale we are talking about isn't satisfied, only a few things can happen:
They will meet their demand with some "other" energy source, as is happening across the globe with deforestation, biofool's plantations, etc.
Or:
They will collapse or die, as is happening across the globe.
Oil supply may always meet affordability, but it will become the least abundant necessity. _________________ 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: Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
Your point, Ludi? _________________ 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: Sun Sep 09, 2007 6:10 am Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
It seems obvious to me, but surely jevons paradox fails if the efficiency gains occur as you slide down the back of hubberts curve (or any falling supply curve) after peak oil has been reached. Assuming there isnt mass collapse and the decline is at a rate at which conservation measures can be put in place both forced and voluntary then if those measures cut consumption at approximately the rate of the fall in supply then it is not possible for such consumptin to produce the excess supply and drop in price that causes jevons paradox to occur.
It's always seemed odd to me that the peak oil community seems obsessed with jevons paradox because it seems to me that PO is the one event which will render it null and void.
Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
I think some ecotopians see it as some sort of rationalization we'll continue to use up everything until there's nothing left. This is true, to an extent. I mean, we'll use up ourselves until there's noting left. However, using something like oil, that's more a product than it is a resource, to justify this is downright silly. The resources we really need at any given point are fairly strictly regulated, unlike oil which is needlessly wasted. We have no need for oil, in fact we're using it as quick as we can, and when it's gone, or gets too expensive we'll transition to something else. _________________
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:13 am Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
If one only taxes energy, that'll lead to a higher efficiency in energy use (with a high enough tax).
However, if one at the same time taxes / rations energy AND the consumables/services produced with energy, then the absolute consumption can go down.
But that is not a free market and most people cannot think in ways of a non-free market (well actually we don't have a free market, but a semi one).
Another way of asking the question, imho is:
Was the free market designed for controlled slowdown or can it only slow down through a crash (i.e. reducing it's own operational environment into a non-supporting state)?
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:00 pm Post subject: Re: How to offset Jevons' Paradox in a free market
OZ_DOC wrote:
It seems obvious to me, but surely jevons paradox fails if the efficiency gains occur as you slide down the back of hubberts curve (or any falling supply curve) after peak oil has been reached. Assuming there isnt mass collapse and the decline is at a rate at which conservation measures can be put in place both forced and voluntary then if those measures cut consumption at approximately the rate of the fall in supply then it is not possible for such consumptin to produce the excess supply and drop in price that causes jevons paradox to occur.
As has been acknowledged all along. But...efficiency gains will still lower the price...relative to what it would have been...even in a declining supply environment.
Quote:
It's always seemed odd to me that the peak oil community seems obsessed with jevons paradox because it seems to me that PO is the one event which will render it null and void.
The "obsession", as you call it, has to do with proposals of conservation and efficiency gains being solutions/mitigations now to the event of peak oil.
Not. _________________ 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: Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:09 am Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
It doesn't matter who said it... wrote:
But from a macroeconomic viewpoint, your conservation efforts are simply shifting the chits on the table. You may be "conserving" by using less apparent fossil fuels, but you are using fossil fuels in the form of the production materials neccessary to produce solar panels, fuels for distribution, etc.
And from a larger persepctive, if your efforts really pay off and do conserve fossil fuels, and your neighbors and larger community do the same, then there will be more supply of fossil fuels on the market. This in turn will make fossil fuels cheaper (due to the glut) and some community somewhere else will take advantage of the cheap price of fossil fuels.
So on a larger level, you are making no difference whatsoever and in fact may be causing the unintended consequence of spurring excessive consumption elsewhere. That means that on a larger scale, your choices and your community's "Green" choices to conserve may actually have the adverse effect of causing more consumption.
(but they could do with a spell checker...)
This clearly illustrates the problem that doomers have when taking "refuge" in Jeavons Paradox.
Notice how there is no/nada/zero/zip mention of the fact that oil is/or will be declining in supply?
There's a third, and unrecognized, factor in the formula.
One need not worry about conservation driving up consumption if there is less and less to consume. What is saved by conservation simply lowers demand to meet dwindling supply.
Matching conservation with supply drop can mean more or less stable prices which mean less economic disruption.
Using Jeavons Paradox to explain how conservation is of no value is like giving directions for driving from New York to Paris and ignoring that 'puddle' in between.
(Might we change the title of this thread to something like "Jevons Paradox - False Hope for Doomers"?)
Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:34 am Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
BobWallace wrote:
It doesn't matter who said it... wrote:
But from a macroeconomic viewpoint, your conservation efforts are simply shifting the chits on the table. You may be "conserving" by using less apparent fossil fuels, but you are using fossil fuels in the form of the production materials neccessary to produce solar panels, fuels for distribution, etc.
And from a larger persepctive, if your efforts really pay off and do conserve fossil fuels, and your neighbors and larger community do the same, then there will be more supply of fossil fuels on the market. This in turn will make fossil fuels cheaper (due to the glut) and some community somewhere else will take advantage of the cheap price of fossil fuels.
So on a larger level, you are making no difference whatsoever and in fact may be causing the unintended consequence of spurring excessive consumption elsewhere. That means that on a larger scale, your choices and your community's "Green" choices to conserve may actually have the adverse effect of causing more consumption.
(but they could do with a spell checker...)
This clearly illustrates the problem that doomers have when taking "refuge" in Jeavons Paradox.
Notice how there is no/nada/zero/zip mention of the fact that oil is/or will be declining in supply?
There's a third, and unrecognized, factor in the formula.
One need not worry about conservation driving up consumption if there is less and less to consume. What is saved by conservation simply lowers demand to meet dwindling supply.
Matching conservation with supply drop can mean more or less stable prices which mean less economic disruption.
Using Jeavons Paradox to explain how conservation is of no value is like giving directions for driving from New York to Paris and ignoring that 'puddle' in between.
(Might we change the title of this thread to something like "Jevons Paradox - False Hope for Doomers"?)
I'm not sure how many times I have said this... in this very thread...
But it's a relative relationship.
More than would have otherwise been consumed. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:05 pm Post subject: Re: Jevons Paradox - Death by conservation
Quote:
... it's a relative relationship.
More than would have otherwise been consumed.
'Tis a very thin hair that you split.
Jeavons Paradox is frequently flung into the mix by doomers as a way to poo-poo any attempt at conserving our way (help to conserve our way) out of this mess.
Best, IMHO, to just holler "BOGUS!!!" when it appears in its "We're all going to die!!!" garb.
In fact, does this thread not bear the title "Death by conservation"?
Is that the message you wish to carry to the world?
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But even if we say it is politically impossible to be restrictive all consumption isn't necessarily 100% totally Pol Pot evil, is it? .
