Does Greater Efficiency Encourage Greater Waste?

Jevon's Paradox is the idea that the more efficient a resource becomes, the more it is consumed. With new future fuels in the works, those promoting sustainability and conservation find themselves at odds with innovation.

1 minute read

March 22, 2010, 11:00 AM PDT

By Tim Halbur


Greg Lindsay at Fast Company delves into the clash between those advancing future cars running future fuels and those hoping to get beyond the automobile era.

"Jevons' peak coal reckoning was postponed by a new fuel source discovered a few years earlier in the Pennsylvania hills: oil. Today, there is another liquid fuel source on the horizon, provided it can scale: next-generation biofuels. Peak Oilers take it as an article of faith that biofuels won't work (and for now they have both physics and economics in their corner). But reading books like the ones mentioned above (or watching films like The End of Suburbia and Collapse) one gets the feeling they're actively rooting against them as well."

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 in Fast Company

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