The Jevons Paradox
Build an engine that burns less coal and the country ends up burning more coal. This was noticed in 1865 and has not stopped.
186518 min read
English political economy and logic
William Stanley Jevons
1835 – 1882
English economist and logician, one of the three independent discoverers of marginal utility alongside Carl Menger and Léon Walras. The Coal Question (1865) made his reputation and contains the efficiency argument now named after him; The Theory of Political Economy (1871) set out the marginalist case. He also built one of the earliest logic machines and did pioneering work on index numbers. He drowned while swimming near Hastings at the age of 46.