by Wildwell » Mon 18 Apr 2005, 12:58:57
That’s what it is, fear of those pesky Chinese getting their hands on SUVs. Lead by example that’s what I say!
I have heard of Jevon’s paradox, but it is an illogical paradox. I’ve bought high efficiency cars in the past and driven more miles, not because of Jevon’s paradox or for any particular economic reason but because I enjoy driving. Since then I have seen the light though and don’t drive at all, it was a drug I had to kick.
Jevon’s paradox is not a natural law it is a psychological tendency when energy gets cheaper. As energy is going to get more expensive then it may not apply. Moreover, William Stanley Jevons, who died in 1882, was paranoid about coal. At this time in Britain (and to an extent Europe and the Commonwealth) it was the period of ‘Railway mania’ and high industrialization in some areas. Everything ran off steam engines and the railway was fast replacing horse drawn traffic and the canals. In 1865 his book called ‘The coal question’ was published, it debated efficiency and consumption.
But did efficiency really increase, leading to increased consumption? While it’s true that new designs allowed factory owners and railway companies to save money, the reality was railway traffic was expanding at an alarming rate (in some people’s eyes) with its pinnacle around the First world war and just after the second world war. It has to be noted (and it often forgotten) that the railway companies were building locomotives to travel faster and faster, principally to complete with each other. For example, in the 1870s the Great Northern railway and North Eastern railway were regularly running at 70mph on the East coast main line, in order to compete with the London and North western and Caledonian railway on the West coast main line. There are numerous example of this, with towns having several rail stations in close proximity in the name of competition. The demand being fueled by people wishing travel further than their own birth place, which was a new thing and moving goods to towns rather than making/growing and consuming products locally.
Steam traction became large, faster and in most cases consumed more fuel as the competition between the railways increased. Companies, such as the Midland railway, who had small engine policies lost out with traffic. In some cases loads stalled the smaller engines on heavily graded lines, such as the Settle and Carlisle culminating in accidents.
By the 1930s road traffic, especially bus traffic and new lorry traffic fueled by oil was eventually biting into rail traffic. Although electric traction had been tried in Tyneside and the South, steam traffic using bigger and faster locomotives was common place until after the war and the 1955 modernisation plan.
Churchill and Macmillan were suitably impressed by the German Autobahns they had seen in the 1930s and later the US road schemes of the 1940s. Government policy was changed in favour of motorways and trunk roads, which gave road transport an enormous advantage in terms of speed and increased capacity compared to what went before with the UK road network. The first motorway to be opened in Britain was the Preston bypass in the early 1950s and in the late 1950s the first trunk motorway was opened (the M1) between just north of London and just east of Rugby.
Naturally the railways only response was to increase speed, hence fuel consumption. Although rail is an efficient transport in any case you cannot get around the laws of physics and steam locomotives were considered obsolete. Hence the later move away from coal and more use of electricity and oil, which is more efficient, which has meant less fuel consumption overall. Moreover, diesel and electric locomotive were cheaper to maintain, easier to start up and required less manning.
Large super sized coal fired power stations were erected in the 1960s and 1970s, thus in order to centralize power production and move away from localised generation from around 1900 onwards in response to the 1930s ‘Weir report’. However, it was technological advances in railway traffic, power generation and home heating – the latter being natural gas from 1967 – which meant coal was on its way out as a fuel source.
Successive governments have built more roads as traffic has increased and the influx of cheap mass produced cars coupled with a rise in deposable income thanks to the increase in credit and second incomes in homes from around the 1960s onwards has meant they have become an aspiration. In 1963 the Beeching report was released, which some said had political overtones in order to pay back the striking railwaymen and miners in the past and a deliberate move away from rail traffic and coal consumption. The result was by 1970 Britain had lost half its rail network and the only choice in many places to move around was by car.
Since then, it has become an aspiration to own these vehicles which are both wasteful for energy in their use and by virtue of their convenience has allowed even more travel compared to the railway pre-war, although not necessarily to any advantage. For example 25% of journeys are less than 2 miles and in most cases car journeys are the result of laziness and urban planning, which has meant out of town shopping and commerce because of pressures of the pricing of town centre property. This is turn has generated more car traffic as people have found the only way get to places is by car or they have been accustomed to the convenience of this mode of transport.
Likewise industry has moved away from coal to electricity in order to comply with the clean air acts of the 1950s. London and many larger cities were suffering from terrible smogs at the time because of air particles resultant of coal burning.
Privitisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s resulted in a ‘dash for gas’. The gas fired power stations being cheaper by virtue of maintenance and fuel delivery and well as government guidelines to reduce Co2 emissions.
While road traffic has continued to rise thanks to policy, geography, credit and income, rail traffic is now the highest since the time of the opening of the M1 – road congestion and the railway’s speed being factors in this. However since the 1930s 2 million railway workers lost their jobs as the need for efficiency took hold. New signalling schemes, traction, track maintenance and station manning arrangements have been implemented in order to get back to profit, which, as a network was last seen in 1955 at the dawn of road transport.
The rise of air traffic in the 1960s has meant the death of the British seaside town, the increase in gloabalisation thanks to speed. However, fuel consumption has risen as people have demanded to go even further from their home and the demand for foreign food, foreign to Britain before the 1960s has increased. In addition a rapid increase in immigration has taken place - in part due to a shortfall in labour post war thanks to the war itself. This in turn has meant more demand, less land spaces and higher prices.
In conclusion none of this is due to energy depletion and Jevon’s paradox, merely transport competition, government policy and technological changes.
