Do you believe in Jevons Paradox?

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by Scruge

Side note... I could never understand why in certain uses the CFL life was less than a few hundred hours. After doing some research I found CFL aren't well suited for frequent and short interval (<15min) applicataions. Like my wife's bathroom habits.
So I've told her to just leave them on. bulb life has increased but I wonder what its costing my in energy. There are 5 of those 35w CFL PAR reflector bulbs on the one switch.. I think I pay $12 for a 3pk at costco / sam's. I replace one about every 60 days.
I may return to the old 90w bulbs as I think they are cheaper in the long run.

Granted this is an old part of the thread...but the problem is not CFL's it's the choice of brands (plus the fact that they are PAR's.) Sam's sells GE, and Costco is Feit. Waste a money in either case, especially for PAR/reflector/enclosed globe types incandescent or CFL. A standard spiral CFL costs about 60% less than the other CFL's mentioned above.

I've got standard spiral CFL's in all of my bathroom lights now. Haven't had a failure in any of them in the past year.

I also have CFL's in my garage door openers. So far no failures.

I'm not inclined to believe the lifetime of good CFL's in these types of fixtures is particularly short based on what I've seen so far.

And no, I don't believe in the paradox in this situation. It can be an unwitting result, but it requires that the demand for a product or service be endless or bounded by incremental cost of the resource. With respect to lighting or travel for example, the demand is not endless. I'm not going to run my lighting 4x more frequently, nor am I going to drive twice as many miles per year simply because I could at the same cost. Many of us would actually find the loss of an additional 300 hours a year to driving to be unwelcome rather than desirable.

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by Shawn Clark

<snip>

And no, I don't believe in the paradox in this situation. It can be an unwitting result, but it requires that the demand for a product or service be endless or bounded by incremental cost of the resource. With respect to lighting or travel for example, the demand is not endless. I'm not going to run my lighting 4x more frequently, nor am I going to drive twice as many miles per year simply because I could at the same cost. Many of us would actually find the loss of an additional 300 hours a year to driving to be unwelcome rather than desirable.

This is the key point, right here in one paragraph.

Tom

[burritos]

Originally Posted by qbee42

This is the key point, right here in one paragraph.

Tom

I live in Socal where there's lots to do, but it's all spread out. While I might not be driving 4x's that I usually do with a prius, I find that when making the decision to take a 100-200 mi day trip to the zoo, disneyland, the aquarium, legoland, or the snow for my toddler to experience, the amount of gas used is not even a consideration. If it were, I might just walk him to the YMCA play gym where arguably he'd be just as entertained.

[icarus]

If you read the fine print on SOME CFLs you will see that they are only warranted for base DOWN installation. Base up installation often times can (and does) lead to over heating of the electronic ballast of the bulb.

I have been 100% CFL for over ten years. I have had two failures, and these were both in a base UP lamp. I also buy good quality, glass bulb shaped bulbs rather than the cheap ice cream cone bulbs.

Icarus

[The Electric Me]

Really what do I know? Since when I first saw the title to this thread I thought it was a discussion about a 70's folk rock band. I could of swore I saw Jevons Paradox play live....

[tripp]

We drive our prius more, but that's because it's more efficient. So instead of driving the Outback, we take the prius. The overall miles are the same, but less fuel is consumed.

[mgb4tim]

how did I sleep through 27 credits of economics and not hear of Jevon's Paradox

[PriusLewis]

This one has me thinking in my "Management Scientist" mode. Here's a good definition of efficiency (as used by economists):

There are two concepts of efficiency: Technological efficiency occurs when it is not possible to increase output without increasing inputs. Economic efficiency occurs when the cost of producing a given output is as low as possible.

Technical Efficiency would be getting more yield in gasoline out of a barrel of oil. I believe we've pretty much reached the end of that trail. To increase economic efficiency, the cost of turning oil into gas would have to come down.

However, in the case of gasoline, it isn't efficiency that sets the price, it's supply and demand and taxes. The cost of gasoline at retail at break-even (without tax) is probably what it sells for in Saudi, or about 30 cents a gallon.

All of which is missing the point - the product isn't gasoline (or diesel or electricity) it's transportation (in cost per unit of travel). So the total cost of the product would be fuel, the vehicle, maintenance, and many other related transportation costs. In the third world, personal transportation costs are prohibitive to many due to the vehicle, usually, more than the fuel (although fuel certainly plays a part). To use up oil quicker, we would need to get more people on the road. Vehicles like the Tata might do more than any change in the price of gas.

[richard schumacher]

Originally Posted by Wolfie52

When I was looking to purchase a Prius, I found it extremely difficult to find a model with reasonable mileage commensurate with its age.

This may be a selection effect and not direct evidence of Jevon's paradox. It's reasonable that people bought new Priuses because they knew they'd be driving a lot and therefore would especially benefit from good fuel economy, and so naturally their used Priuses tend to have many miles per year.

Without other data I find it hard to believe that significant numbers of people would drive additional thousands of miles per year just because they're spending less per mile.

[JimboPalmer]

Before I bought a Prius, I had a Forester. (24 MPG) My wife has a company owned Xterra (18 MPG) for which they provide gas. When we drove for her business, we took 'her' car, when we drove for my business we took my car.

Now I own a Prius, (42 MPG) and the company is allowing us to take my car on her business trips and providing gas. This does not mean we are driving more, but it does make for one more Prius that will never be a low mileage used car. (18,500 miles since April)