Tag Archives: LEDs

Low-Tech

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In a culture where high-tech is synonymous with high-class, simple technology can seem irrelevant and outdated. After all, the low-tech lifestyle of horse-drawn carriages, weaving looms, and windmills hearkens back to an era predating our grandparents. Who wants to carry the stigma of appearing old-fashioned? Yet that desire to be modern — through new cars, computers, and televisions — has led to many social ills such as climate change, e-waste, and the obesity epidemic. Perhaps it’s high time to rethink high-tech.

The trouble with high-tech is that it prefers complicated solutions to simple ones. Take the problem of navigation, for example. Where a simple map and compass would do, high-tech prefers a GPS device instead. With the low-tech solution, all that’s needed is a piece of paper and a magnetized piece of iron. The high-tech device, however, requires batteries for power, integrated circuits for the computer, light-emitting diodes for the display, and hundreds of geosynchronous satellites for geolocation signals. Such sophistication, indeed, might come in handy for a truck driver or a mail carrier. But for the average commuter, the selling point of a GPS device is usually some minor convenience like voice navigation. How trivial, given high-tech’s record of wanton environmental destruction.

That pattern of environmental destruction is no accident. With high-tech products, wastefulness is built into the very design of its life-cycle. When a device requires electronics to manufacture, it is nearly impossible for an ordinary person to build it using scrap material. Any boy scout can print out a map using scratch paper and magnetize a compass made of scrap iron. Assembling your own TomTom — using only repurposed electronics, no less — is a superhuman feat (1).

So high-tech devices must always come from stores, which have little incentive to recycle. Repairs, when offered at all, are rare and expensive. That does not trouble shoppers as much as it should, since they have grown accustomed to devices that are not built to last. But will they ever grow accustomed to e-waste and landfills?

A pitiful trend emerges. Rather than empowering a person to solve his own problem, high-tech makes him dependent on outside infrastructure. A traveler must now rely on semiconductor factories, satellite networks, and coal power plants to figure out where he is. This forms the beginning of a vicious cycle: the more he uses his GPS, the quicker he forgets traditional navigation skills. Map illiteracy rates will rise, making GPS devices appear all the more essential. It is a likely situation, considering that only two centuries ago, our ancestors could navigate using stars alone.

Depending on a Rube-Goldberg machine is not cheap. Embedded in the price tag of every GPS device is the price of its specialized components: the processor, the LED display, the memory chips, the lithium-ion battery, the antenna, and the plastic surrounding the electronics. But the heaviest costs aren’t reflected in the price at all: they are passed on to future generations. Recycling e-waste is expensive, and no one wants to pay for the cleanup of space debris left by decomissioned satellites (2).

Alas, money can’t buy everything, especially not the infrastructure that high-tech demands. This is especially true in the backcountry, but even in the city, infrastructure can fail during an emergency. Satellite signals can grow weak, batteries can die, electronics can short-circuit, data can be erased, and GPS stores can close. When the infrastructure that sustains high-tech shuts down, so do the inventions. Modern technologies are not as robust as their primitive counterparts, so they simply stop working — often when needed the most.

It makes sense, then, to search for better technology — technology that is not highly complicated but rather highly appropriate. The ideal technology will be small in scale, easy to build, simple to fix, straightforward to recycle, low in cost, and highly reliable. This quest for appropriate technology, it turns out, often leads us back to the technology of our ancestors.

Besides, there’s no shame in being old fashioned. Horse-drawn buggies might draw unwanted attention, but other simple inventions, such as bicycles, vegetable gardens, and solar cookers, can even be stylish. You just need the will to get started — and maybe a little courage to deal with those curious neighbors and their impolite stares.

 

 

  1. Gpskit.nl teaches you how to build your own GPS using common hardware. The problem is that it’s difficult to recycle electronics.
  2. All those satellites produce a lot of space debris. Who will clean up all that floating garbage?
  3. Low-Tech Magazine has some great articles on low-tech inventions.
  4. Photo credit: Calsidyrose, CC BY.

The Jevons Paradox

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Energy-efficiency has become the talk of the town. Scientists, marketers, journalists, and politicians alike are showering praises on the new technologies that promise to revolutionize our planet. From zero-emission electric cars, to smart electric grids, to green laptops, high-tech sustainable solutions seem to promise the world a brighter future (1). It’s a positive message at heart: to solve the world’s energy problems, all we need is better engineering. And with many prototypes near completion, who wouldn’t be excited?

The economists aren’t, for one. These contrarians are quick to point out that most attempts towards energy-efficient technology have proved utterly futile. History has repeatedly shown that energy-efficiency rarely leads to net energy reduction. In fact, quite frequently, efficiency improvements makes things worse by actually encouraging a net waste in energy. This counter-intuitive effect is known as the Jevons Paradox.

This energy-efficiency paradox was first described in the mid-1800s by a British economist named William Stanley Jevons. During this era, coal was the fuel that powered industrialization in Britain. Britain was blessed with this valuable resource: geologists estimated that it had around 90 billion tons of natural coal reserves (2). This ample supply of cheap energy provided the power for the nation’s vast array of steam engines. These engines, in turn, powered the manufacturing industries that made the British Empire wealthy.

Over time, Britain’s economy became increasingly dependent on coal. Since 1770, the amount of coal being consumed each year was growing exponentially. Assuming continued exponential growth, England would exhaust its vast coal reserves in the next 100 years — not good at all for the powerful British Empire. Engineers, therefore, were racing to produce machines with better energy-efficiency. If only efficiency increased, they believed, we could reduce the demand for coal. Jevons, however, knew better.

In 1865, Jevons published The Coal Question, which investigated the relationship between efficiency and total energy use. His results were absolutely startling: energy-efficiency was worse than useless — it was positively harmful. Historical records showed that the more efficient steam engines became, the more coal Britain ultimately consumed. Better technology within the 18th century had actually caused coal consumption to grow exponentially.

This paradox is best illustrated by example. Suppose the average car gets 25 miles to a gallon of gasoline, with each gallon costing $4. Using hybrid electric technology, engineers could create an improved car that gets 50 miles using a single gallon. As a result of this breakthrough, the improved car could produce the same amount of work using half the amount of gasoline.

The economics, however, look different from the consumer’s point of view. To the consumer, this improvement in efficiency has effectively halved the price of transportation. Whereas it used to cost $4 to travel 25 miles, now it only costs $2. Now that transportation is much cheaper, it’s possible to drive more than ever before. Our driver can now afford to do more than just commute to work; he can take cross-country road trips every month, if he so pleases.

Suppose our driver originally burned 10 gallons of gasoline each week. With new technology, he can save half the fuel, or 5 gallons of gasoline, each week. Unfortunately, our driver decides to take extra road trips, and drives an extra 150 miles each week. As a result, he ends up burning 8 gallons instead of 5. That’s 3 gallons more than what he could potentially have saved, had he kept his driving habits constant. We say that the rebound effect is 60%, since that is the percentage of potential savings that was forfeited (3).

At this point, it still looks like energy-efficiency could be of some use. After all, a 60% rebound effect still implies that 40% of the potential savings were retained. Isn’t it better to have our driver conserve 2 gallons of gas, rather than no gas at all? But here’s where it gets peculiarly disturbing: the rebound effect frequently exceeds 100%. Returning to our analogy, a rebound effect greater than 100% would means our driver is now burning more than 10 gallons of gas each week. If our sustainable car suffered from 120% rebound (3), that means 11 gallons of gas are burned instead of 10. This backfiring is the paradox that Jevons observed with steam engine technology.

What exactly happens to all of the potential savings?

For one, as machines become more efficient, engineers tend to add more features and provide better performance. Hybrid-electric cars might accelerate faster, become roomier and heavier, and include more electronics. Those extra creature comforts squander all the potential savings in fuel technology.

Drivers might also suffer from greenwashing. Let’s suppose our driver is environmentally-conscious. When he used to drive his old clunker, he’d feel guilty about wasting gasoline. But when he drives a zero-emission hydrogen car, he does so with clear conscience. After all, most people don’t stop to realize that hydrogen fuel requires energy to produce, which currently still uses coal to produce (4). Besides, he’s already spent thousands of dollars going green; what’s a little extra driving here and there?

But perhaps most importantly, average consumers simply don’t care about conservation. Many passengers take the bus each day, not because they care about the environment, but because gasoline is expensive. By increasing the fuel efficiency of cars, the effective price of driving decreases. This provides the average passenger with extra encouragement to drive instead of taking public transit.

Even non-driving activities contribute to the rebound effect. If our driver spends less money on gasoline because of fuel efficiency, he now has more disposable income. He might choose to use that extra cash for a cruise to the Bahamas or a plane ticket to Europe, activities which both waste tons of gasoline.

Altogether, these effects usually ensure that the rebound effect is greater than 100%.

The Jevons Paradox can be quite disheartening, especially after you realize how often it occurs.

  • Architects, for example, are now wasting more energy than ever before using energy-efficient LED lighting. They do this by plastering buildings with LED lights to create gigantic lighting displays (5). The buildings are lit all night, 7 days a week. Such lighting was previously too expensive using traditional lightbulbs, but energy-efficient LEDs now make it cost-effective.

  • As another example, refrigeration may result in increased energy usage. The benefit of refrigeration is that, by preventing food spoilage, consumers can save electricity the electricity used in food production. However, refrigeration inadvertently encourages us to buy too much food. Today, the average American throws away 40% of the food he purchases — you could hardly call that saving electricity (6).

  • Energy-efficient heating and cooling may have resulted in increased electricity demand. The problem is that energy-efficient air conditioners and heaters encourage people to leave these systems on longer. Lower costs might even encourage the average home-buyer to buy a bigger house. Any potential savings are thus wasted cooling and heating extra space (7).

The Jevons Paradox makes it clear that technology by itself can’t solve our present energy crisis. If new innovations aren’t accompanied by a cultural shift towards conservation, they are likely to waste more energy than ever before.

The trouble with sustainable living is that it requires a total lifestyle change. Life apart from consumerism can be difficult to imagine, so we resist. It’s much easier to just keep searching for the next big thing. We want to be environmentally-friendly, but we don’t want to give up our cheap energy, shopping sprees, fast cars, quick profits, and junk food. So we’ll be sure to see plenty of paradoxes for years to come.

  1. These technologies are an improvement, but they’re still not sustainable. Zero-emissions cars aren’t really zero-emissions; they still require electricity, which is produced by burning coal. Smart grids will save some energy, but we will just waste the savings by powering more gadgets. Lastly, even the greenest laptop will produce some e-waste, since electronics aren’t biodegradable.
  2. From Wikipedia’s summary of The Coal Question.
  3. If he had the potential to save 5 gallons, but only saved 2, then he wasted 3 out of 5 gallons, which gives 3÷5 = 60% rebound effect. An 120% rebound effect is equivalent to 120% = 6÷5. In other words, he had the potential to save 5 gallons, but actually wasted 6 more.
  4. Physics Professor David McKay writes that the Hydrogen 7, the hydrogen-powered car made by BMW, requires 254 kWh per 100 km – 220% more energy than an average European car. In other words, hydrogen cars are worse than conventional cars.
  5. Low-Tech Magazine explores LEDs and energy-efficiency paradox.
  6. From an abstract in The New Yorker.
  7. One writer argues that efficient heating and cooling has led to a rise in McMansions.
  8. Photo by nugefishes, CC BY; our own picture.