{"id":431762,"date":"2026-03-17T12:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=431762"},"modified":"2026-03-17T12:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:57:12","slug":"the-jevons-paradox-explains-why-net-zero-is-an-exercise-in-futility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=431762","title":{"rendered":"The Jevons Paradox Explains Why Net Zero is an Exercise in Futility"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fy Nick Rendell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson\u2019s \u2018End of the World\u2019 sketch<\/a> from The Secret Policemen\u2019s Ball<\/em> is a timeless piece of comedy because, like with all great comedy, we instantly recognise the target of the joke. Every generation throws up its own cultists, convinced that they alone can anticipate and possibly avert the \u2018end times\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the bloke who stood, with sandwich boards proclaiming \u201cthe end of the world is nigh\u201d in my childhood town had had access to social media, who knows, he may have become the Greta Thunberg of his day, with millions hanging on his every word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greta always puts me in mind of two characters: one fictional, Violet Elizabeth Bott of Just William<\/em> fame, the spoilt brat from next-door who would yell, \u201cI\u2019ll thcream and thcream till I\u2019m thick!\u201d (translation: I\u2019ll scream and scream until I\u2019m sick); and, Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, who almost brought down Henry VIII, so popular were her visions and prophecies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Greta chucked in school when she was about 12, Barton never went. Despite this, and again, like Greta, Barton met repeatedly with Henry\u2019s senior ministers, though her meetings ended rather less well for her than did Greta\u2019s. It was Thomas Cromwell who, worried that the Barton cult was getting out of hand, had her executed on trumped up charges and a number of her followers hung, drawn and quartered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps humans are pre-programmed to adopt apocalyptic cults. After all, the Abrahamic religions all anticipate the end of the world as we know it. Christian breakaway sects, such as the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and Christadelphians, appear to expect Judgement Day any time soon, but perhaps no sooner than those \u2018green\u2019 zealots who set up a trestle table each Saturday in our town square, cover it with baize and pamphlets and, literally, try and frighten the children. Ironically, their pitch is immediately opposite the Jehovah\u2019s Kingdom Hall! Take your pick, they\u2019re all selling the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I have my doubts that observance or otherwise of any religious dogma will make much difference, but it\u2019s not something that\u2019s easily proven, maybe prayer will work? However, on the \u2018green\u2019 front, I\u2019ve recently come across the \u2018Jevons Paradox\u2019, a concept that rather wonderfully illustrates the utter futility of expecting Net Zero policies to succeed in ridding the world of fossil fuels by 2050 or any time prior to the sources of such fuels becoming exhausted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

English economist Jevons\u2019s 1865 book The Coal Question<\/em> set out to answer the question why, as steam engines become more efficient, does demand for coal increase rather than decrease? The rather obvious answer was due to the laws of supply and demand, identified by John Locke and later expanded upon by Adam Smith. It wasn\u2019t just the upfront purchase price of a steam engine that affected demand but also their running cost. As the running costs went down due to greater efficiency, demand for steam engines went up even faster and the number of applications to which they could be applied increased exponentially. Coal became the great driver of progress, and Britain had loads of the stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was true for coal in 1865 is just as true for electricity now: whether that electricity is generated by coal or wind, globally we just can\u2019t make enough of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This point was very much brought home to me by our own Tilak Doshi in a recent article titled \u2018Barclays Sounds the Alarm on Renewable Energy<\/a>\u2019. He observed that renewable energy had become additive, not substitutive. Illustrating the point with the following chart showing global energy consumption by source since 1800.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Globally, as we generate more renewable energy we don\u2019t use less fossil fuel generated energy, we use it all and still want more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently I saw the additive nature of new forms of electrical generation while driving through a semi-desert area of Morocco. Beside the road were multiple small, fenced fields equipped with solar panels powering a pump and a healthy looking crop. While a power station was unlikely to be able to be built and deliver electricity to these outlying farms, localised solar systems were perfect. They didn\u2019t need 24\/7 power, just enough to keep the cistern tanked up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greens have yet to recognise the Jevons Paradox, but examples abound. Take LED lighting. LEDs didn\u2019t simply substitute for pre-existing bulbs, instead they massively expanded the market for lighting. We now have LEDs everywhere. Where we used to have a couple of 60W bulbs in our kitchen we now have 36 5W LEDs in the ceiling, countless others under the kitchen cupboards, more inside the cupboards and several built into each kitchen appliance; we\u2019ve even got them in the floor. Our demand for energy for lighting hasn\u2019t gone down, it\u2019s gone up, despite LEDs being 10 times more efficient than old tungsten filament bulbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driverless cars will prove to be another example. When you finally take delivery of your driverless car will you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Use the car less than at present?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Use the car the same as at present?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Use the car more than at present?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    You don\u2019t need to be uniquely insightful to suspect that the correct answer is \u2018c\u2019. Without the need to drive yourself, you\u2019ll start driving to the pub or restaurant rather than walking or taking a taxi. You\u2019ll start sending your car on unaccompanied journeys to run errands, to collect your mates before you go to the pub, or perhaps you\u2019ll send the car to collect your elderly mother then get the car to drive her home again. Rather than making one round trip to go and see her your car will make two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    An innovative 2018 study<\/a> by Harb and colleagues gifted households a chauffeured car (as a proxy for a driverless car) and monitored usage compared to their usage before and after the period of time with the accessible chauffeured car. Cars were dispatched all over for trivial tasks, friends were collected and driven home, nothing was too much trouble, because these additional tasks were, for the driverless car controller, no trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Of course, the most obvious example is AI. The Jevons Paradox is working out for AI data centres in exactly the same way that in the 1860s it worked out for steam engines, where it was the coal rather than the steam engines themselves which were the constraining factor in their adoption. With AI it\u2019s the availability of competitively priced electricity rather than the data centres or the software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The tragedy for Britain is that, to date, we\u2019ve failed to grasp the Jevons Paradox. We\u2019re operating on the basis that renewable energy need only substitute for fossil fuel generation, but this only holds true if we\u2019re happy to stand still or go backwards, while our competitor nations focus on generating as much kWhs as possible at the lowest cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Net Zero echoes Malthus rather than Jevons. We\u2019re imposing our own \u2018limits to growth\u2019 by constraining our own electricity generation industry and so both making our traditional heavy industries uncompetitive and strangling our prospective new industries, such as AI, at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Looking further ahead we already see Elon Musk talking about solar powered data-centres in space. Operating at close to absolute zero, data-centres will have no need of the cooling systems that on earth consume both a big chunk of the energy and account for the vast majority of its mass. Additionally, with no cloud cover in space and the opportunity to always have line of sight to the sun, solar power will be able to power orbiting data-centres 24\/7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s nonsensical virtue signalling of the worst kind not to exploit our own natural resources: we\u2019ll simply get left behind as demand for electricity increases to power new applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In the same way that Malthusians were wrong about the constraints on food production, so they\u2019ll prove to be wrong about both the future demand and supply of electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The truth is, particularly in a world where the power of global institutions is waning, it will be cost not virtue that will dictate the energy mix. We need to ditch the hair shirts and embrace abundance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson\u2019s \u2018End of the World\u2019 sketch from The Secret Policemen\u2019s Ball is a timeless piece of comedy because, like with all great comedy, we instantly recognise the target of the joke. Every generation throws up its own cultists, convinced that they alone can anticipate and possibly avert the \u2018end times\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":431768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691820752,691818656,691828685,691818154,691819094,691841913],"class_list":{"0":"post-431762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-economics","9":"tag-electricity","10":"tag-neo-malthusianism","11":"tag-net-zero","12":"tag-renewable-green-energy","13":"tag-the-jevons-paradox","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQME-11wZ19-uVrQmHL-fhkv3PZcz1t4wXwI9uVvJsrQYKfHW09aSEKRh2iDe-t5dMoh-f4Q9MVB-ckTVZAXrIYY1kqggkFdLzjjQSRVteUU-UvoLX1B8FdDL7eOsQIb-1.jpeg?fit=1498%2C823&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1OjU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":260998,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=260998","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":0},"title":"Rowan Atkinson: I love electric vehicles \u2026 But increasingly I feel duped","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/07\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Comedy legend\u00a0Rowan Atkinson, who plays\u00a0Mr Bean,\u00a0Johnny English,\u00a0Blackadder, and many other comedy roles, is not happy with his electric vehicle.","rel":"","context":"In \"Electric Vehicles\"","block_context":{"text":"Electric Vehicles","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=electric-vehicles"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0mr-bean-mclaren-f1-e1582046625513.webp?fit=1102%2C555&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0mr-bean-mclaren-f1-e1582046625513.webp?fit=1102%2C555&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0mr-bean-mclaren-f1-e1582046625513.webp?fit=1102%2C555&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0mr-bean-mclaren-f1-e1582046625513.webp?fit=1102%2C555&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0mr-bean-mclaren-f1-e1582046625513.webp?fit=1102%2C555&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":260963,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=260963","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":1},"title":"Rowan Atkinson Challenges Electric Cars as Environmental Panacea","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Rowan Atkinson, with an engineering background and a passion for cars, expresses skepticism about electric cars as the environmental solution they are claimed to be. He highlights the carbon emissions and resource-intensive manufacturing process of lithium-ion batteries and suggests exploring alternatives like hydrogen and synthetic fuels.","rel":"","context":"In \"CO2\"","block_context":{"text":"CO2","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=co2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0Rowan-Atkinsons-Top-6-Cars-2018.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0Rowan-Atkinsons-Top-6-Cars-2018.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0Rowan-Atkinsons-Top-6-Cars-2018.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0Rowan-Atkinsons-Top-6-Cars-2018.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":300687,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=300687","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":2},"title":"The great electric car lie is a monstrous deception against the British public","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/08\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s laughable for eco zealots to blame Rowan Atkinson for low take-up. It\u2019s just not rational for most to buy one.","rel":"","context":"In \"anti-car fanatics\"","block_context":{"text":"anti-car fanatics","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=anti-car-fanatics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05562W6MALFCDRIVX42DRNINJGY.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05562W6MALFCDRIVX42DRNINJGY.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05562W6MALFCDRIVX42DRNINJGY.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05562W6MALFCDRIVX42DRNINJGY.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/05562W6MALFCDRIVX42DRNINJGY.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":301948,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=301948","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":3},"title":"Mr. Bean Was Right \u2013 and So Was Toyota","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/16\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"When auto (even EV driving) enthusiast Rowan Atkinson \u2013 Mr. Bean to his fans \u2013 last June wrote in\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0that there are \u201csound environmental reasons\u201d why \u201ckeeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV,\u201d he was vilified as a eco-traitor.","rel":"","context":"In \"auto insurance\"","block_context":{"text":"auto insurance","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=auto-insurance"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/03883876.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/03883876.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/03883876.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/03883876.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/03883876.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":290579,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290579","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":4},"title":"The Oil Demand Outlook COP28 Leaders Would Hate","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/09\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Oil producers slammed the IEA for manipulating data.","rel":"","context":"In \"COP28\"","block_context":{"text":"COP28","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=cop28"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0489829.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0489829.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0489829.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0489829.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0489829.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":290487,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=290487","url_meta":{"origin":431762,"position":5},"title":"Caf\u00e9 Latte Coral & The Bump Heads","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"12\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Australian governments \u2013 especially recent Coalition governments \u2013 keep giving so much money to activist scientists who claim they can save the Great Barrier Reef?","rel":"","context":"In \"Australian governments\"","block_context":{"text":"Australian governments","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=australian-governments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0filming-small-IMG_3742.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0filming-small-IMG_3742.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0filming-small-IMG_3742.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0filming-small-IMG_3742.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/0filming-small-IMG_3742.jpeg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431762"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431770,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431762\/revisions\/431770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/431768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}