John M. Polimeni, Kozo Mayumi, Mario Giampietro, and Blake Alcott: The myth of resource efficiency: The Jevons Paradox

摘要

Since the beginnings of widespread use of natural resources for fuel, there have been economic and philosophic discussions about the importance of using these resources efficiently; the debate has been revitalized with "peak oil." The Jevons Paradox, named for nineteenth century economist and philosopher William Stanley Jevons, goes like this: if there is an increase in efficiency in the use of a resource, its price can go down, leading to an increase in the use of this resource and under certain circumstances can actually increase overall energy use as opposed to reducing it.