Efficient Refrigerators and the Paradox of Consumption

When U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett spoke last year to Congress about the world oil supply, he mentioned the Jevons Paradox. William Stanley Jevons theorized that when technology becomes more energy efficient, total consumption of the energy source goes up. The Jevons Paradox could explain many situations in which efficiency leads to increased consumption. I have a friend who is seeing it play out in his science research lab. People who buy food in bulk at big-box stores, according to some studies, eat more of the food than if they'd bought less of it. You can apply the Jevons Paradox to Americans and their houses or apartments. By law, most appliances use much less energy today than they did five, ten, and more years ago. And yet American households continue to use ever more energy every year. Consumers Energy, in Michigan, one of the largest utility companies in the nation, found that over the last 20 years the average power use per household has increased 1 percent each year. Aside from washers, dryers (and hot tubs or heated pools), no appliance uses more energy at home than the refrigerator. But refrigerators are so efficient today that they use a third to half of the energy a 10-year-old model uses. It should be easy to save power with such great savings. But it isn't. We have a big old electric hot water heater in the basement, a computer system, a television, a washer and dryer. Many houses have larger refrigerators than they would have a decade ago. Or they keep the old one for beer. It's normal these days to own two or three televisions, a hot tub, numerous appliances and systems, and central air conditioning. It's a paradox. The more efficient we become, the more energy we use. But wait -- there's a way to get away from this and it has to come from us.