

What can Jevons' Paradox tell us about energy law? - Homunculiheaded
http://www.questionable-economics.com/jevon/

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nvader
One positive way of looking at this is we can get Jevon's Law to work for us
by applying it to renewable energy sources: something that we see right now.
As the price of solar energy in the home falls, we'll see increasing adoption,
and it will be put to more uses. At some point, it will fall to the point that
it becomes attractive to commercial users.

I'm not trying to imply that this will happen automatically, of course.
However, there's ample opportunity to get a virtuous cycle of efficiency and
increasing demand for renewable energy.

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SixSigma
Except it isn't counter-intuitive at all, even to undergraduate economists.

All the interesting economic decision activity takes place at the margin,
efficiency improvements move the margin and the unprofitable becomes
profitable.

It's not even paradoxical.

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SilasX
But it's extremely counterintuitive to the general public, which favors energy
efficiency mandates (even more than energy taxes or cap-and-trade) as a means
to reduce energy usage, without realizing that such measures may actually
increase energy consumed, while leaving you with worse products.

