[Heineken]

It will sort itself out, Coyote.

The human race is about to pass through a giant filter. Those who make it through will fashion a new way of living . . . a much less elaborate and probably shorter one.

[patience]

aahala2,
Thanks for improving my understanding of Jevon's Paradox. Now it makes sense, and describes what I see. Business maximizes profit by exploiting resources, proving the paradox. Individuals, though, can profit by minimizing their use of resources, by reducing costs.

For most of my life, I have tried to get the most for my money, and wondered at those who do not. When my relatives buy very ostentatious cars, clothing, etc., that they can ill afford, I think of it as a tax on their lack of understanding, or misplaced priorities.

Those spending priorities were set by careful ego-manipulation done by astute advertisers, who now use the misunderstood MPG illusion to continue to empty the pockets of the gullible.

A turning point in my life long ago, was reading Vance Packard's book, "The Satus Seekers", detailing the selling of bigger cars to blue collar Americans by selling cars as status symbols. Since reading that, the whole scam of advertising is disgustingly transparent. How else could they sell automatic electric everything on cars? Bragging rights, pure and simple, disguised as "comfort", "convenience", "performance", "luxury", ad nauseum.

[Heineken]

That says it nicely, Patience.

But some blame also rests with those blue-collar workers you speak of. They had the same opportunity as you to turn their backs on all the nonsense.

(Actually white-collar workers, with whom I am more familiar, having been one of them, made similar mistakes.)

[patience]

Heineken,
Well, I was a white collar worker, too, and was derided regularly for my thinking. I haven't bothered to go look up those people. I'd only find a host of excuses and sour grapes.

Yes, we all had the same chances. But advertising IS brainwashing. I believe that the only reason my kids aren't rabid consumers is that my wife taught them early on that if products were any good, advertising wouldn't be needed. And, too, when I was tired of being badgered about breakfast cereal with toys in it, I took the TV out and shot the damned thing.

[MyOldTDiIsStillGoing]

Purchasing my TDi in early '98, I too was a long commuter of 45 miles O/W so I did the MPG test and payback of the different MPG. Most people still don't understand math, but it was simple to calculate. As I get 42MPG with it today, I have people say, trade it in for a motorcycle that gets 60MPG. Still that math problem.

What I did in '98 was budget myself for $100/month for petro consumption. Granted, I used less than that, but it was a baked in adjustment for road trips and such. Oh, any surplus went into savings and investment.

At $1.25/gal for diesel then, I evaluated at that time if it would go to $3/gal, what would the impact be. I could adjust very easily as prices bounced around.

So today, 10 years later, I am fortunate that I have only a 15 mile commute O/W. And the budget is still $100/month which now the road trips are gone.

Yes, it was a great car for road trips and those days are done. But the budget is still safe and I now just have to listen to people cry over something they should of prepared for 20 years ago.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'H')eineken,
Well, I was a white collar worker, too, and was derided regularly for my thinking. I haven't bothered to go look up those people. I'd only find a host of excuses and sour grapes.

Yes, we all had the same chances. But advertising IS brainwashing. I believe that the only reason my kids aren't rabid consumers is that my wife taught them early on that if products were any good, advertising wouldn't be needed. And, too, when I was tired of being badgered about breakfast cereal with toys in it, I took the TV out and shot the damned thing.

[Bman4k1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') have no problem at all with 6 litres per 100 km, but when I post on peak oil I always have to convert that into miles per gallon, so that the widest audience possible understands the terminology. 39.43 mpg. About what an average new sedan with a 1.6 litre, 4-cylinder, manual transmission gets here in Europe without giving up comfort or performance.

coyote wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') found this a very interesting study on gains in fuel efficiency. Basically, it says that modest-seeming efficiency gains in lower-mpg vehicles actually adds up to a lot more fuel gallons saved than does apparently dramatic efficiency gains in higher-mpg vehicles. In other words, the diminishing returns law here applies. This is made clear by thinking in terms of gallons per mile instead of miles per gallon.

[Cologne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'P')eople with better-mileage vehicles will tend to drive more miles.

Either they will use much of the "saved" gasoline, or someone else will.

Jevon's paradox.

I have a guzzling F-150 4 x 4 but I drive it only 4500 miles per year. My "mileage" is fabulous.

[Heineken]

I agree that Bill's response was nothing short of fabulous. I really admire a logical mind, and Bill has one.

However, I disagree instinctively with his argument, albeit more simplistically.

People will always consume as much gasoline and diesel fuel as is available. And that's exactly what happens. There is no 10-year delay. The world consumes essentially all the fuel that comes onto the market. As soon as it is available, it is purchased and burned. As supply continues to dwindle and population and demand to increase, the urgency and alacrity of this relationship tighten ever more.

Conservation and efficiency efforts are, in effect, a shell game. The little ball gets shifted dextrously around, but it is still there under one of the moving shells, itself unchanged.

Perhaps Bill's arguments could have applied a decade ago, when there was still a reasonable margin between supply and demand. But the margin is gone and there is no way of getting it back, not when you factor in human nature, human desperation, and our stupendous incompetence in dealing with this ultimate crisis.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'C')onservation and efficiency efforts are, in effect, a shell game.

[lper100km]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bman4k1', '
')
How do you convert l/100 km to mpg? I was born in the l/100km so Im used to talking in terms with that. But I wouldn't mind knowing how to convert.

My car gets 7.9l/100km in city and 6.2l/100km driving long trips.

[MrBill]

The reason that Jevon's Paradox fits so nicely with the steam engine powered by coal analogy is that there was a demand to expand rail transport because it represented an efficiency gain over other modes of transport - especially for freight - and there was a lack of infrastructure. So improvements in steam engine technology were accompanied by a massive rail building effort to meet an existing need.

By comparison N. America has been losing miles of railway track for generations despite our diesel-electric locomotives being more energy efficient than coal fired steam engines. Actually I read that the latest models of steam engines to come out in the 1950s were just as efficient as the new diesel-electrics, but the advantage of diesel-electrics is that you can string several of them together for more pulling power as well as they can be operated by a much smaller crew.

So it was not just energy efficiency per engine, but scalability and labor costs. So even as coal prices fell in real terms making many mines unprofitable coal did not find its way back into steam engines. Of course, going forward diesel-electrics may be running on coal to liquids, but that is another discussion.

As I said, I have no problem with the theoretical underpinnings of Jevon's Paradox that are quite logical. I just feel that too many people misinterpret it. If energy were cheap and abundant then we would find more and more uses for it. That is supply and demand.

So long as energy can produce useful work then it is a substitute for labor. Therefore, cheap and abundant energy raises living standards by freeing up productive labor for higher value-added tasks. That is why Heineken says that we always seem to use as much as we produce. Naturally. We would not produce energy we do not need. It would be a waste of resources.

However, as economic growth requires energy, and the world's population is still expanding, plus developing nations are trying to improve their living standards by substituting energy for labor this is obviously creating positive demand for energy as well. So as we see supply is struggling to keep up with that demand. And it always will because if energy fell in price we would just find more economic uses for it. You call it Jevon's Paradox. I call it unlimited demand with finite supply.

Demand for petroleum will only fall when we discover a cheaper and more abundant alternative like the diesel-electric that replaced the steam engine running on coal. If you tell me that is impossible then you have your answer. Demand will continue to consume 100% of supply. And if actual supply is dwindling then demand destruction will square the circle via higher real prices. As demand cannot exceed supply. You cannot consume something that does not exist.

UPDATE: demand destruction
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles on public roads than in the same month the previous year, a 4.3 percent decrease. It was the sharpest one-month drop since the Federal Highway Administration began keeping records in 1942.