It was John Lennon who famously remarked, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. So too, market forces is “what happens” while bureaucrats are busy planning strategies. According to a new study, government anti-carbon emission initiatives are being undermined by the boom in sales of electronic gadgetry and devices.

Though it won’t come as any surprise to those familiar with the economics of resources, what the carbon jihadist authors and bureaucratic planners have yet again failed to factor in is the strategy-usurping ‘law’ of energy efficiency: the Jevons Paradox.

The elephant in the room

According to The Elephant in the Living Room: How our appliances and gadgets are trampling the green dream published October 4, 2011 by the UK’s Energy Saving Trust (EST), the boom in sales of energy-consuming gadgetry is, despite rising prices and economic constraints, fast undermining the EU’s carbon emission target of a 34 percent reduction by 2020.

As the report dryly observes, “Our hunger for smartphones and tablet computers, games consoles and e-readers, giant fridges and large washing machines, seems to trump even uncertain employment and shrinking disposable incomes.” The UK study also points to new developments in computers and printers as having added significantly to “the nation’s electricity bills”. And the International Energy Agency’s “1-watt plan” launched a decade ago and designed to keep the standby power of computers at below that figure, has only, the report author’s find, had “some impact”.

According to the report authors, as much as 30 percent of all UK CO2 emissions now come from domestic appliances. In essence, the authors argue that the greater mobility afforded by electronic technology has been responsible for a shift in energy consumption, from industry to the domestic household. And unless “action is taken in this area”, the UK will fail to meet its 2020 carbon targets. “In short”, the report concludes, “it is time for us to get rid of the elephant that’s sitting inside our living rooms”.

Given the ardent love affair most of us enjoy with a raft of new electronic wizardry, the report’s conclusion evokes a vision involving “King Cnut” and “tides”. In short, by virtue of our obsession with a veritable smorgasboard of electronic devices, the carbon jihad is well on course to become yet another victim of the Jevons Paradox.

The Jevons Paradox (Again)

The 19th century economist William Jevons was writing about coal – the cheap energy resource that fuelled the industrial revolution. Fearing the early exhaustion of coal resources – peak fuel alarmists are nothing new – Jevons undertook a review of the more efficient use of this resource in The Coal Question.

But what the brilliant English economist discovered was a principle that could be applied to the greater energy efficiency of all fuel resources. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth”, says Jevons. He adds, “As a rule, new modes of economy will lead to an increase of consumption according to a principle recognised in many parallel instances.” In short, Jevons laid down the proposition that increasing the efficiency with which a fuel resource is used tends to lead to a greater, not lesser, consumption of that resource.

Electricity is not, of course, a primary fuel. It is secondary ‘fuel’ generated largely by CO2-emitting fossil fuels, particularly coal and gas. Only a tiny proportion is generated from renewable sources (and even claims for low CO2 emissions from wind power are questionable). To significantly increase renewably-sourced electricity generation would require massive further public subsidy. Without government imposing significant green taxes to pay for renewable projects and/or direct heavier levies on electronic goods, the development of new electronic devices will continue apace with more energy being consumed. CO2 emissions would, in consequence, also increase. In short, the Jevons Paradox easily explains the conundrum enunciated by the EST report.

They shoot elephants, don’t they?

As regards just how modern society’s love affair with the “elephant in the living room” is to be targeted, the report is somewhat bereft of realistic ideas. We learn of the need to “reduce domestic energy demand dramatically – within this decade”, the need for “influencing of consumer purchasing decisions” and that retailers be asked to “stock only the most efficient TVs”.

Any “action” would it seems, have to include fast-tracking more renewable-sourced electricity generation and/or adding hefty green levies directly onto high-tech goods. Either way, growing public anger against green taxes that are spiking soaring energy prices, could well prove politically suicidal for democratic governments; as Cnut’s beach antics might well have proved to his kingship once his subjects overblown faith in ‘earthly bureaucracies’ was shattered (Cnut’s wise intention, of course).

The only other suggestion by the EST authors appears to rely on appealing to the ‘green’ conscience and social goodwill of our domestic retailers. Good luck with that.