"In economics, the Jevons paradox (sometimes called the Jevons effect) is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource. It is historically called the Jevons Paradox as it ran counter to popular intuition. However, the situation is well understood in modern economics. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use, improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource - which increases demand and speeds economic growth, further increasing demand."

David Fuller's view This is a very good point. Additionally, while developed economies have considerably increased the efficiency with which they use oil in the last decade or more, we have all acquired more gadgets that require energy.

However I have emphasised a different point in recent months:

The drive to become less dependent on oil imports has led to an accelerated and often subsidised effort to develop alternatives - natural gas (both conventional and especially shale gas recently), cleaner coal, renewables (wind, solar, tidal and bio-fuels) and nuclear.

These are now making increasing inroads into the demand for crude oil, a process that I believe will continue for a long time.