up:: 0x51 MOC Dissertação Mestrado
Brookes, 1990
“Implicit price”: o equivalente de um Efeito Preço de um bem quando sua Utilidade (“benefício”) aumenta
“if consumers (and producers) find that they get more benefit from a given level of expenditure on a resource (energy in this case) it has the same effect on their decisions as if the price had fallen: the resource concerned becomes a relatively more attractive item compared with others in their shopping list.” (p. 319)
Crítica aos defensores da eficiência energética: se há benefício de substituir capital e trabalho por energia, então há capacidade ociosa e, portanto, potencial de crescimento de produto que requerirá maior consumo de insumos, incluindo energia
“If the proponents of energy efficiency are right that there are benefits to be obtained from substituting capital or labour for energy[,] it implies that the present allocation of available economic resources is sub-optimal and that, if we do as they ask, the efficiency of resource allocation will rise to produce an increase in output at the macroeconomic level. In other words, there will be an improvement in multifactor productivity at that level. History (and, as we shall see later, economic analysis also) suggests that this improvement is likely to be greater than the improvement in energy productivity, resulting in an increase in total energy consumption notwithstanding any fall in consumption per unit of output.” (p. 320; grifo meu)
Já está alinhado ao argumento marxista de eficiência energética (Capital Circulante) aumentar o próprio consumo de capital em geral — Capital Constante e Capital Variável, a depender da Composição Técnica do Capital. Ainda cabe ver como a própria composição muda com essa “mudança de eficiência”!!
“Fifth fuel”: carvão, petróleo, gás, energia nuclear, e “eficiência energética”. Pressupõe:
- Falácia da Composição: que o menor (possível) uso energético a nível individual resultará num menor uso a nível macro — mas haverá mesmo menor uso a nível individual, ao menos a nível de indústria?
- “Lump-of-energy-dependent-activity-fallacy”: análogo à Lump of labour fallacy, assume-se que a quantidade de energia disponível para uso é fixa, enquanto seu preço implícito cai (i.e. se torna mais eficiente) e configuram-se mudanças proporcionais no uso energético a nível macro
Cenário em que suprimento de energia (e/ou seu preço) são restrição à atividade econômica: Sobre Primeira Crise Mundial do Petróleo (1973) e Segunda Crise Mundial do Petróleo (1979) terem aparentado causar “aumentos médios em eficiência energética” puramente pela queda de produção de setores mais intensivos em energia:
“Much of the apparent energy efficiency response was more in the nature of an economic phenomenon than deliberate planned action. Higher energy prices have the effect of pricing some of the more energy-dependent goods and services out ofthe market. An article in the Economist newspaper during the seventies claimed that the first oil price hike put 4% of America’s capital plant out of business. For obvious reasons it was the plant used for the production of the more energy-dependent goods that constituted this 4%. This alone rendered the remaining 96% more energy efficient, on the average, than the original 100% without anyone necessarily having adopted more energy efficient processes and practices.” (p. 323; grifo meu)
Cenário em que suprimento de energia não são restrição à atividade econômica: Caso um aumento de eficiência em energia produza maior retorno econômico — dado input fixo de trabalho e capital —, então há uma alocação sub-ótima de recursos; tal nova alocação ótima, através de produtividade geral, é, geralmente, historicamente maior que o aumento em eficiência energética, portanto aumentando seu consumo mais do que seu decréscimo por eficiência.
“We have already seen that[,] if improvements in the efficiency of energy use are able to produce an economic return (more than pay for themselves[,] in other words)[,] it implies that the current allocation of the resources available to the economy is sub-optimal — a different allocation, with capital and/or labour substituted for fuel would produce an increase in economic output at the macroeconomic level, given the assumptions adopted. Since we have not increased the amounts of the capital and labour resources available to the economy[,] this benefit must flow from an improvement in general economic productivity. Actual experience suggests that this improvement is likely to be greater than the improvement in energy productivity[,] thus leading to an increase in total energy consumption notwithstanding a possible fall in energy consumption per unit of output. How else do we explain a long history of increasing energy consumption both in total and per capita (with only occasional uncharacteristic blips) occurring alongside large improvements in the thermal efficiency of conversion of fuel to useful heat and mechanical energy?” (p. 323-4; grifo meu)
Medidas de eficiência energética:
- (Joules por USD?)
- (sem unidades)
Contra o messianismo da eficiência energética — pelo ponto de vista capitalista:
“A very relevant point was made by Grilliches, who stated that he knew of no case in economic history where, faced with a constraint on an economic resource, consumers of it had responded by economising in that resource alone: an energy constraint (a sharp price increase) might well be dealt with by economising in labour (Grilliches, 1981). The explanation offered by the writer [Brookes] for the experience quoted by Grilliches is that sensible economic man [sic] will always act to maximise welfare subject to all the constraints that surround him — and this applies whether he is a producer or consumer. To tell him to respond to an energy price/supply constraint (an adverse shift in the energy price/supply curve […]) by maximising returns to energy alone is to bias his response[,] and it would be an unlikely coincidence for such a restriction on his options to be other than sub-optimal. The least damaging response to the advent of this constraint (or indeed any other) is to reallocate all available resources so as to maximise welfare subject to that constraint and any others that may “bite” in the process of reallocation.” (p. 328)
A imposição de Impostos sobre energias poluentes (emissoras de ) pode induzir um “cenário 1” — diminuição de produção dos setores mais dependentes dessa energia, e consequente aparência de eficiência energética geral —, e, depois de ajustes de “consumers (both intermediate and final consumers)” (p. 330-1) a tais impostos, haveria reconfiguração geral da indústria, com produtividade geral sobrepassando produtividade energética, produzindo demanda maior para seja outras fontes energéticas (a menos de impostos muito altos), seja pelas próprias fontes taxadas (a menos de custos de troca).
Referências
BROOKES, L. G. Energy Efficiency and The Greenhouse Effect. Energy & Environment, v. 1, n. 4, p. 318–333, 1 dez. 1990.
BROOKES, Leonard G. Energy efficiency fallacies revisited. Energy Policy, v. 28, n. 6, p. 355–366, 1 jun. 2000.
SAUNDERS, Harty D. The Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate and Neoclassical Growth. The Energy Journal, v. 13, n. 4, p. 131–148, 1 maio 1992.