Jonathan Koomey of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stanford University has estimated that 1.6% of the US electricity consumption is now being used to power servers in data centres. This includes the necessary cooling systems and associated data-networking equipment. The figure has doubled in the past five years giving an annual growth of about 14%. This represents the output of five 1000 MW power plants. For the whole world, the figure is 14 such plants, and the total cost of this electricity $7.2B per year.
If growth continues at this rate, information could become the dominant use of energy. The calculations above do not account for the domestic use of energy for information purposes. Consumption by TVs is a comparable level (1.5%) and the consumption from domestic and office computers similarly is significant.
So even if we stop burning up fuel to fly around the world, eventually, energy needed to sustain our data bases and provide the video conference in place of flying will be our next energy problem.
The solution: maybe a shortage of energy will itself bring about a population reduction. The human race is subject to the laws of nature just as much as any other species on the planet, but the implications of this may be harsher than we would wish (see Paul Chefurka, 2007)
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