"And so, amazingly, for the first 20 years of its use, the main effect of the most important lifesaving technology in the history of coal mining was to increase the efficiency of the mines while preserving existing probabilities of death and injury."

To me, this is the hardest-hitting sentence of the entire article.

Be sure to remember this whenever a new achievement in efficiency (power or otherwise) is announced, be it in computing, industry, or transportation. Such advances are rarely aimed at lessening the load on the environment; not at first, anyway. Instead, they are used for extracting more profits, while burdening the environment just the same -- I think "more profits" is the incentive for such research and advances in the first place. I think the EU does it right, by demanding progress via regulations. Whether those directives are issued after the technological advances are reported, or the directives are the motivation for the research, I cannot say; either way, advances can be steered toward public benefits only via regulations.