If you switch to new energy-efficient LED lights, are you
less concerned about switching them off when you leave the room?
Friday, October 31, 2014
Does efficiency make you use more? It's the rebound effect.
If you get a new-fuel-efficient car, do you drive more?
It’s called the Rebound Effect—the tendency to conserve less
when you’ve become more efficient.
It’s real, according to a series of studies out in the past
couple of years. Among those is The Rebound Effect and Energy Efficiency Policy, by Kenneth Gillingham of Yale
University, David Rapson of the University of California, Davis, and Gernot
Wagner of the Environmental Defense Fund.
But the rebound effect is also complex. It can behave
differently in different sectors.
The bottom line is that some folks argue that the rebound
effect is a bad thing—promoting excessive use of resources.
The paper argues the opposite. To the degree that efficiency
gains let you use lights, refrigeration, transportation or even air
conditioning without additional costs, that rebound improves life—it’s a good
thing.
“While the energy savings from energy efficiency policies
will be reduced by the presence of a rebound effect, a (zero cost energy
efficiency improvement) is likely to
both conserve energy and increase welfare,” the authors say.
The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy
yesterday published a paper, The ReboundEffect – Mountain or Molehill?
It estimates that the Rebound Effect can reach 20 percent,
meaning that you only get 80 percent of the benefit from efficiency efforts.
But AEEE argues that’s still a very good thing.
“The truth is that for 40 years energy efficiency has had a
dramatic effect on worldwide energy consumption. In the United States, if we
were to use energy today at the rate we were in 1974, we would be consuming
more than twice the amount that we are actually using,” writes ACEEE Executive
Director Steven Nadel.
© Jan TenBruggencate 2014
Posted by Jan T at 10:51 AM
Labels: Conservation, Efficient transportation, Energy, Pollution, Solar, technology
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