Comment by silentkat
11 hours ago
It's a well-known "paradox" known as Jevons Paradox. Given enough efficient use of a resource, overall usage could actually far outpace the efficiency gains. E.g. use of coal got efficient enough that travel via trains using it became possible, which led to way more usage of coal.
Can confirm Jevons Paradox. But in a more environmentally friendly way.
Just took my house onto off-grid solar, yet my energy consumption now exceeds when I was on utility grid power.
Naturally we ration things when they're expensive. But now I don't feel the need to turn off the lights or appliances when I leave my home, and my EV driving has gone up knowing that "fuel" is essentially free from here on out. And to soak up excess solar, I run multiple computers and servers 24/7 with reckless abandon.
Driving more is not environmentally friendly, even in an EV. You're putting more wear and tear on the tires and brakes, which are not sustainably manufactured. And more road traffic means more repaving, requiring diesel vehicles and massive amounts of tar.
"Free" fuel for you just pushes the externalities elsewhere.
How far does it scale? Because I imagine there must be diminishing returns at some point. And even so, having a lot more renewable energy also means less cancer.
Yes there are diminishing returns, but they're a long way from where you start.
Pre-industrial revolution most people in my country own enough clothing for everyday and then maybe some extra stuff for "best" appearance like church. Making a shirt requires hours of labour from skilled workers. The machines eliminate one of those jobs ("hand" weaving, using a loom that you operate at human scale, replaced by enormous machine looms which produce much more fabric and much faster with far less human labour) and streamline others so that the price of a garment collapses. So people buy a lot more garments. You probably own enough clothes that you can wear different clothes each day for at least a week, likely more, and you think nothing of it.
Most people won't buy so many clothes that they can't even wear items once, but many get pretty close, and so worldwide we produce hugely more clothing per person than before the textile mills were first built.
Really far.
The crux of Jevon's paradox is that you’re lowering the cost of revenue below the sale price.
If I can generate $10 a sale then I’ll do no sales if it costs me $11 . If gas drops from $4 to $2 then I’ll do as many sales as I can as $9 is less than $10.
I mean, right now, supposedly, we don't have enough energy to run as many AI data centers as everyone wants to build, and so big tech is getting into the power plant business to scale up: they'd love it if you stopped using energy they want to buy!