Jevons Paradox

Can energy efficiency be bad for the environment?  How can electric cars and LED lighting result in higher rates of overall energy usage when they are meant to have the exact opposite effect?  This is the crux of the Jevons Paradox which indicates it is going to be even harder than previously thought for society to reduce the overall amount of energy usage (and therefore CO2 emissions).  

William Stanley Jevons was a British economist who argued way back in 1865 in his book The Coal Question that energy efficiencies designed to save or reduce the amount of fuel used tend to have the paradoxical effect of increasing energy consumption in the long-term. Jevons noted that the introduction of James Watt's innovative steam engine resulted in each individual engine using less coal. A good thing. But because each individual engine used less coal, they were more cost-effective to use. This resulted in steam engines being rapidly employed in a wide range of industries where they had previously not been used. In the long-run, Watt's development of the steam engine led to a dramatic increase in the overall amount of coal being burned because steam engines were now all over the place.