Energy Rebound as a Potential Threat to a Low-Carbon Future: Findings from a New Exergy-Based National-Level Rebound Approach

Paul E. Brockway, Harry Saunders, Matthew K. Heun, Timothy Foxon, Julia K. Steinberger, John R. Barrett and Steve Sorrell
Additional contact information
Paul E. Brockway: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Harry Saunders: The Breakthrough Institute and Decision Processes Incorporated, 2308 Saddleback Drive, Danville, CA 94506, USA
Matthew K. Heun: Engineering Department, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, USA
Julia K. Steinberger: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
John R. Barrett: Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-24

Abstract: 150 years ago, Stanley Jevons introduced the concept of energy rebound: that anticipated energy efficiency savings may be “taken back” by behavioural responses. This is an important issue today because, if energy rebound is significant, this would hamper the effectiveness of energy efficiency policies aimed at reducing energy use and associated carbon emissions. However, empirical studies which estimate national energy rebound are rare and, perhaps as a result, rebound is largely ignored in energy-economy models and associated policy. A significant difficulty lies in the components of energy rebound assessed in empirical studies: most examine direct and indirect rebound in the static economy, excluding potentially significant rebound of the longer term structural response of the national economy. In response, we develop a novel exergy-based approach to estimate national energy rebound for the UK and US (1980–2010) and China (1981–2010). Exergy—as “available energy”—allows a consistent, thermodynamic-based metric for national-level energy efficiency. We find large energy rebound in China, suggesting that improvements in China’s energy efficiency may be associated with increased energy consumption (“backfire”). Conversely, we find much lower (partial) energy rebound for the case of the UK and US. These findings support the hypothesis that producer-sided economies (such as China) may exhibit large energy rebound, reducing the effectiveness of energy efficiency, unless other policy measures (e.g., carbon taxes) are implemented. It also raises the prospect we need to deploy renewable energy sources faster than currently planned, if (due to rebound) energy efficiency policies cannot deliver the scale of energy reduction envisaged to meet climate targets.

Keywords: constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function; aggregate production function (APF); energy efficiency; energy rebound; exergy efficiency; exergy; macroeconomic rebound; energy policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/1/51/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/1/51/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:1:p:51-:d:87181

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().