Why Energy Conservation Fails

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Herbert Inhaber

Book Code: QP597

ISBN: 1-56720-597-6

ISBN-13: 978-1-56720-597-8

DOI:

256 pages, Figures, Tables

Quorum Paperback

Publication: 3/30/2002

List Price: $41.95 (UK Sterling Price: £24.95)

Availability: Print on demand

Media Type: Paperback

Also Available: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Description: Energy efficiency and energy conservation are often thought to be the same. They are not, according to Herbert Inhaber. Only when less total energy is consumed by all users will energy actually be saved. Energy efficiency schemes do not accomplish this goal of conservation: when one person or nation conserves energy, there is just more of it for others to use elsewhere. This is the first book to answer, comprehensively and objectively, the question: Do government energy conservation programs hinder or help the nation? Says Inhaber, "the fact that billions of dollars have been spent on energy conservation programs, without giving a searching look at what has been accomplished, is a national scandal." Clear, concise, and with numerous useful graphs and tables, this book is an important first step toward making us all aware of what energy conservation actually is--and is not--and how it can and should be implemented. This work includes chapters on how conservation is applied in the electric utility world, whether waste truly exists, the economic aspect of conservation, its relation to Marxism, and past examples of conservation failures. Inhaber reviews many of the points that were first made by Stanley Jevons, the father of modern quantitative economics, who stated more than 130 years ago that increased efficiency often produces greater overall energy use, not less. Inhaber concludes that "a remedy claimed to cure all ills will cure none. The faith placed in conservation as a solution to a mountain of problems is, in large part, misplaced. The words 'energy conservation' have captivated people of almost all political and philosophical persuasions. My book should cause many people to rethink their blind faith."

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Fundamentals of Why Energy Conservation Fails
Strange Terminology
Psychology of Energy Conservation
Mathematics of Energy Conservation
Petroleum and Gasoline
In the Comics
Marxism and Energy Conservation
Environment, Pollution and Recycling
What Stanley Jevons Found
Fast Forward to the Past
How the Government Does
Crime and Conservation
Public Utilities
The Question of Waste
The Economic Aspect
Selling Energy Conservation
Resource Depletion
Workers and Energy Conservation
Examples They Don't Want You to Hear About
The International Scene
Morality, Politics, and Energy Conservation
Food and Energy Conservation
Where Do We Go from Here?
Annotated Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 96-6576

LCC Class: TJ163

Dewey Class: 333


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