Jevons Paradox

Comments repeatedly reference and discuss Jevons Paradox, the economic principle where efficiency gains in resource use lead to increased overall consumption rather than savings. Discussions apply it to contexts like energy, computing, AI data centers, and electric vehicles.

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#1892
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Keywords

NYT AI en.m axios.com EV wikipedia.org paradox consumption efficiency energy reducing energy consumption cost oil costs power

Sample Comments

PaulHoule Jun 13, 2024 View on HN

What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ?

tjalfi Mar 6, 2025 View on HN

Are you referring to Jevon's Paradox[0]?[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

etrautmann Aug 4, 2022 View on HN

Jevon's paradox comes to mind here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#:~:text=In%20ec....(yes this is frequently brought up here on hn...)

ryao Jan 29, 2025 View on HN

Jevons’ paradox seems relevant:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

pier25 Jun 25, 2024 View on HN

Yep. See Jevons paradoxhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

bottled_poe Apr 1, 2019 View on HN

You might think so, but... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

dTal Oct 10, 2016 View on HN

That would be Jevon's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

njdancer Dec 4, 2025 View on HN

See Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

GistNoesis Oct 19, 2024 View on HN

Does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox apply in this case ?

dTal Dec 25, 2025 View on HN

Doubt it:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox