Jevons' Paradox Misunderstood?
Julio F. Campos
The paradox is crucial when we face a corporation advertising of a more efficient process, energy efficient products, sustainable use of energy or resources. It is, as we will see, also the first consideration that must be made when we ask "how can we be more sustainable".
Here it is presented why that the idea that Jevons' Paradox is only related to energy is a misunderstanding, since the paradox wasn’t postulated referencing to the energy use but to the use of energetic resources, coal in the case.
As postulated by Jevons in 1865 book “The Coal Question”:
“Whatever, therefore, conduces to increase the efficiency of coal, and to diminish the cost of its use, directly tends to augment the value of the steam-engine, and to enlarge the field of its operations.”
In other words the cheaper it is to use coal, there will be more use possibilities for the energy that it produces results in more coal being used.
The problem then is not only about the increase in efficiency of the machinery used, but also in the increase of its value (as it can produce more with less) which results in more machinery being sold, and more resources being consumed because the machinery got cheaper.
Here the misconception about the paradox, since it is not focused on energy but at the cost of the resources and equipment that generates that energy. Therefore the analysis about energy itself is wrong not because more energy efficient equipment use will increase due to its more efficient, but because its production is more efficient and, as result, the product is cheaper and more people will be used. The more people that use a given product system, the more resources it consumes.
Also, some are concerned that without the increase in efficiency we would end up using more energy, that scenario is only true if the market size of a given equipment is constant along time, regardless its efficiency increase in a way that the prices of all equipment remained unchanged, regardless of the cost efficiency of its production.
Therefore, to put down the paradox the solution is not only to have more efficient production processes but keep the consumer prices at the same level.
But it must be considered that over time not only one product will become cheaper due to increasing production efficiency, but also other product will, resulting in a higher percentage of income available for consuming and therefore more products being bought.
The paradox can be verified today if we look at the evolution of cell phone market. It’s not difficult to verify that the efficiency resources used in the equipment production (energy included) has increased since early its years and today we consume much fewer resources to produce cell phones than, let’s say, 10 years ago. But the point that is missed is: How much more cell phones are sold by the year today due to lower cell phone prices?
The paradox therefore cannot be solved by focusing on energy/resource efficiency, as it was never the problem. The environmental solution is to avoid the increase of market penetration of a given product due to the reduction in its price.
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