In the 1800s, coal was essential for everything from heating to transport to manufacturing. Improvements in steam engine designs would steadily reduce the amount of coal necessary... Productivity gains allowed Britain's resources to stretch further.
Although Americans say they remain wary of autonomous driving, boosters insist there is nothing to fear. They foresee roads full of self-driving cars that are both safer and cleaner than the status quo.
Jevons drew from history to show that steam engines' efficiency led people to deploy more of them. Demand for coal exploded because burning it became economically viable.
As a classic 19th-century theory known as a Jevons paradox explains, even if autonomous vehicles eventually work perfectly, they are likely to increase total emissions and crash deaths.
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