Jonas: read the actual report.

For household heating, household cooling and personal automotive transport in
developed countries, the direct rebound effect is likely to be less than 30% and may
be closer to 10% for transport. Direct rebound effects for these energy services are
likely to decline in the future as demand saturates. Improvements in energy efficiency
should therefore achieve 70% or more of the reduction in energy consumption
projected using engineering principles. However, indirect effects mean that the
economy-wide reduction in energy consumption will be less.
<...>
For household heating, household cooling and personal automotive transport in
developed countries, the direct rebound effect is likely to be less than 30% and may
be closer to 10% for transport. Direct rebound effects for these energy services are
likely to decline in the future as demand saturates. Improvements in energy efficiency
should therefore achieve 70% or more of the reduction in energy consumption
projected using engineering principles. However, indirect effects mean that the
economy-wide reduction in energy consumption will be less.

The rebound effect is not news, and one reason we need to combine multiple approaches to emissions reduction -  public investment, regulation, and emissions pricing. But in the energy field it is something that reduces results; it does not reverse them and cause efficiency improvements to increase consumption. The case of the steam engine is not comparable to fossil fuel use today. A better comparison is solar energy. The operating costs to produce solar electricity are cheap but the capital costs are extremely high. If someone could get five times as much work out of a solar cell without increasing the capital costs to produce it (including any concentrator costs if concentrating PV was the means used) then increasing the efficiency with which a solar cell used sunlight would also increase the use solar energy. If we could make a coal plant twice as efficient we probably we NOT double the consumption of coal, though this would not cut coal use in half either.  

It also says:

While rebound effects vary widely in size, in some cases they may be sufficiently large to lead to an overall increase [emphasis in the original text] in energy consumption - an outcome that has been termed `backfire'. There is some evidence to suggest that improvements in the energy efficiency of certain `pervasive' technologies such as steam engines and electric motors have contributed to backfire in the past.

What makes you say that a switch from, for example, the ICE in transport, to battery-electric vehicles will not be a 'pervasive' technology that will backfire?

And the comparison with solar energy and the comment about capital costs would need to take into account this statement from the report:

Improvements in energy efficiency are often associated with improvements in the productivity of capital, labour and materials. More efficient use of these other inputs will tend to amplify the rebound effect.

Finally, let's not forget that we're living in a globalised world. The division between developed and developing countries is a bit arbitrary. Energy efficiency breakthroughs will rapidly be taken up in the developing world, where rebound effects and even 'backfiring' can be much stronger than in highly developed countries.

In fact, there's even a formalised system in place that allows fat, opulent, inefficient industries from Europe to invest in efficiency increases in developing countries. This system is called the Clean Development Mechanism. And there are definitely signs of backfiring there, because most of these CDM projects are taking place in countries where the drive to consume ever more is very, very, very big (China, India).

No electric cars are not that kind of technology. Electricity and battery cycles are still significant costs. And we have actual experience with electric cars and more efficient cars. Also use your freakin common sense. If you have a car that is five times as efficient are you really going to drive five times as much? You love driving so much, you don't want to spend any time at any desinations. Someone who drives an hour a day is really going to start driving five hours a day?

Any efficiency wedge involves burning biomass it just can't work, hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I can guarantee you that if you design an affordable electric car that is considerably more efficient than an ICE, it will become a 'backfiring' technology, because tens, possibly hundreds of millions of new consumers will buy it and start using far more energy than they are doing today.

As said before, you have to look at the world as an interconnected, global place. That's why the report looks at 'economy-wide' effects.

Efficiency increases are rapidly transferred to economies in which they can backfire.

I suspect the backfiring effect could be larger than the one the world witnessed after the introduction of the steam engine.

We'll see.

Of course, like Amazingdrx suggests, the backfiring can be a good thing if all these cars are powered by carbon-negative bioenergy. That way, the more you use of it, the more CO2 you remove from the atmosphere... ;-)

No resources should be wasted on new generation technologies until we have completely tapped out the conservation measures. We need to practice, as individual humans, zero-based energy budgeting. This means to ask "How can we eliminate driving?" rather than "How can we improve the efficiency of the automobile?"
"How can we change our sleep times and life habits to reduce the need for lighting?" rather than "How do we improve these Mercury-laden compact florescent bulbs?"

Yes, conservation hurts. Get over it.

While we bath our brains in the soma of false hopes of a technological solution, we continue to drive our butts to bike races, kids to private schools and jobs so that we can afford Viking ranges and granite counter-tops and bigger hot tubs. Well, we are sealing our fate. CONSERVE!

We may have to take a step backwards in time to the 1800's where the average family probably used 100 kilowatt hours a year of fossil fuels. Hey, we will all be better for it.

The more of the bioshpere converted to gas guzzler fuel and fed to biomass power plants, the closer we'll be to solving the climate problem.

It just makes sense, hehey.

Wind, solar, wave, and biogas energy from the waste stream actually increase GHG!  

This is starting to sound like a high school debating team practice.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Well, electricity generation efficiency is always talked about. However, the electricity distribution efficiency and demand side management is still more like of a experimental or pilot type technologies which need to be addressed in terms of delivering the real term advantage to the consumers. Many measures will require the smart devices to be installed on consumer end, the cost of such devices is still a concern and who is going to bear that cost is even of more concern.
I would appreciate if somebody could throw a light on how we are planning to take care of those costs. Because this is one of the factors that will affect the success of electrical energy efficiency programs in future.

...it's hard enough to get time for Grist, but I'll see what I can do.

An important we should be asking, in my opinion, is how much of these reductions in per capita are driven not by succesful implementation of energy efficiency projects but by good ole price signals?

New York, California and Hawaii have among the highest average retail prices for electricity in the country. Prices are high in these places for a variety of reasons but they all have the obvious effect of reducing usage.

Furthermore how well does this fact wash with the whole "this isn't going to cost us anything" message I keep seeing getting tossed around.

I have different opinions on how we should reach our goals than many on this site, but I truly would hate to see people get on board thinking they won't feel any extra pain in the pocket book or quality of life, only to find out it isn't all wine and roses. And for many Americans, and perhaps the majority of the readers of this website, there might not be apprciable effects in either category but I think if we are all honest with ourselves we know that there a lot of folks out there for whom a rise in their electricity price to the level of CA, NY or HI would be hard to cope with.