Think that a move to LED-based lighting would reduce energy consumption? Think again:
SOLID-STATE lighting, the latest idea to brighten up the world while saving the planet, promises illumination for a fraction of the energy used by incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. A win all round, then: lower electricity bills and (since lighting consumes 6.5% of the world’s energy supply) less climate-changing carbon dioxide belching from power stations.
Well, no. Not if history is any guide. Solid-state lamps, which use souped-up versions of the light-emitting diodes that shine from the faces of digital clocks and flash irritatingly on the front panels of audio and video equipment, will indeed make lighting better. But precedent suggests that this will serve merely to increase the demand for light. The consequence may not be just more light for the same amount of energy, but an actual increase in energy consumption, rather than the decrease hoped for by those promoting new forms of lighting.
This is yet another example of the Jevons Paradox: the more efficient the utilization of a resource is, the more of it is consumed.
No. Their misplaced assumptions are staggeringly bad. They assume that the transition to LED lighting will be similar in scope to the transition from candles. Electric light is electric light, the transition won’t make it more available. Now, if the authors had suggested that LED lighting systems in developing countries would encourage the use of electricity, I might have have been more credulous. As it was.. really? you want 10 times as much light as you have now? seriously? I’m turning down lights, I *like* natural light and use bright light only when I need it. The idea that people are using a tenth as much light as they would otherwise be, because it is currently three times too expensive is.. um, no. Even if you lit your entire house as bright as day, and kept it that way at night (people want areas to be dark, they feel shut down, unused, unintrusive, and you might want to actually sleep sometime), you still won’t get anywhere near 10 times. And outside, cities are dealing with light pollution as it is!
There are a limited number of lighting receptacles in a building, so there is a limit on how much more light a typical household can consume regardless of the efficiency of the lighting system. Jevon’s paradox probably has more applicability for renovations and new construction where efficient lighting might drive some people to install more receptacles.
More importantly though, buildings need to be seen as systems. Changing one thing in a home/building is going to affect the other parts. For example, incandescent lights put out a significant amount of heat. Switching to efficient lights will somewhat decrease the cooling load necessary during summer months, but will increase the load in winter months. So for northern climates in winter time, some portion of savings from efficient light will be eaten up because the heating system will have to make up the difference. In a southern climate, efficient lights can produce bigger savings than the gains from the lights themselves since the cooling load is reduced. Efficiencies therefore can’t be calculated accurately without considering the entire building and it’s environment and climate as a system.
I don’t believe Jevons Paradox claims that there is a 1:1 ratio, i.e. every dollar saved on energy through efficiency is offset by an additional dollar freed up to pay for more energy. Jevons concluded that a free economy cannot “efficiency” it’s way around the problem of a dwindling scare resource. The cheaper coal became, the more uses were found for it.
That final line about scar[c]e resources should have said “The cheaper coal-based energy became, the more uses were found for it.”
Me, I’ve got a life in wartime attitude: I don’t even walk in front of windows. Someone might see me.