Efficiency Paradox
Evan Zabawski | TLT From the Editor August 2014
How improvements might be setting us back.
To truly improve, we need to stop believing that greater efficiencies entitle us to increase usage.
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THE DRIVE TO REDUCE FRICTION and wear has inspired inventions for thousands of years. The foremost example is the invention of the wheel and axle, closely followed by the creation of axle grease (from animal fat). It is hard to imagine the world without all the other mechanisms inspired by this invention. However it would seem that singular improvements do not always yield an overall gain.
Case in point: when Jacob Rowe applied for a British patent for a rolling element bearing in 1734, he suggested that adopting such bearings to wheel carriages would lead to significant horse-energy savings. The patent application estimated the savings realized would be that “one horse now will do the labor of two… and …I will suppose that there will be occasion to employ only 20,000 horses…instead of the 40,000 existing in the United Kingdom at an annual savings of 1,095,000 pounds per year.”
In 1970, B.W. Kelly of the Caterpillar Tractor Co. addressed this claim in his paper
Lubrication of Concentrated Contacts – The Practical Problem. Kelly said, “that he was not able to find historical records that reported such sudden prosperity had occurred. As a result, he concluded that the cost for keeping a horse that was not working was as much as it was for one that was in fact working.”
The reality was likely that instead of needing half as many horses, we simply doubled the work using the available horses, which, in turn, reduced the cost of work and led to an increased demand for work. The same phenomenon can be seen in the commercial airline industry.
Improvements in jet engine efficiencies since the 1960s have resulted in a 50 percent reduction in the amount of fuel burned for a specified range. However, passenger miles per gallon have been steadily increasing along with the total consumption of civilian aviation fuel. The reason is that more efficient engines produce lower ticket prices, which, in turn, yields more passengers, resulting in more jets flying every day.
The Kyoto Protocol sought to address the effects, rather than the cause. Instead of encouraging more efficient machines, the target is a reduction in national greenhouse-gas emissions. But the only way we seem to be able to accomplish that is by shrinking our economy. The U.S. realized this during both the President Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and did not ratify the agreement, citing that it “would seriously harm the economy of the United States.”
Germany followed the intended plan and met 80 percent of its requirement by shutting down its inefficient Soviet-era industrial plants. Britain privatized the coal industry, which caused a predilection for cleaner burning natural gas instead of coal as fuel for power generation. Economic changes do work but only if the brunt is borne by the masses. Canada originally ratified but then became the first signatory to withdraw from Kyoto because it chose not to suffer the economic consequences.
University of Alberta researcher Denise Young found “~30 percent of households surveyed indicated that they operated two or more refrigerators.” And ~60 percent of refrigerators were still functioning when replaced, and 20 percent of those were kept in use (often referred to as a beer fridge). Young concluded that “of the 1,105 beer fridges in use...~20 percent can reasonably be assumed to be former primary refrigerators that had been replaced,” and the bulk of them were over 20 years old with very poor efficiencies. The net result is an increase in total energy use.
Once the media reported on these findings, it was joked that half of Canada’s required reductions under Kyoto could be met if everybody simply unplugged their beer fridges. Alas, it would help, but it would not be enough. To truly improve, we need to stop believing that greater efficiencies entitle us to increase usage.
Evan Zabawski, CLS, is the senior reliability specialist for Fluid Life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. You can reach him at evan.zabawski@fluidlife.com.