In 1865, English economist William Stanley Jevons noticed this pattern during the Industrial Revolution. James Watt invented a much more efficient steam engine that burned less coal per unit of work. Instead of saving coal, the cheap power source caused factories, ships, and trains to multiply rapidly. Total coal consumption surged.
The Jevons Paradox is an economic concept stating that as technological improvements increase the efficiency of a resource, total consumption of that resource often increases rather than decreases.
Core Concept
- The Mechanism: When a tool or engine becomes more efficient, it needs less resource to do the same job. This lowers the effective cost of using that resource.
- The Rebound: Lower costs make the resource more economical, encouraging people and industries to use it more widely or find brand-new applications for it.
- The Result: The rise in total demand outweighs the savings from individual efficiency gains, driving up overall resource consumption.