Energy Demand to Quadriple In 10 Years

We may ask why is energy demand growing so rapidly?

By: Jon Dougal - Monday, January 28, 2008

PHANTOM LOADS
One answer to that question may be the little green and red lights you see all over the house and office at night when the room lights are turned off. Those little lights represent "Phantom Loads." Phantom Loads (PL) represent unproductive energy use.

PL's in the U.S. are equal to the entire energy demand for Peru, Greece and Vietnam combined. Those little green and red lights on chargers for phones, pagers, blue-tooth headsets, VCRs, DVDs, Tivos and other digital video recorders, mobile wireless devices, printers, computers, scanners, etc all draw energy.

THE INTERNET
The Internet also is a major contributor to energy use. The Internet depends on "servers" to route web and email traffic. Any thermal map of a city will show hot spots that include server farms. Larger architectural firms, the phone company, and search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Ask search engines use enormous amounts of energy. Server farms generate heat as by-product of their function.

One of the reasons that server farms use so much energy is that they were designed when electricity prices were relatively low and are typically measured based on computer power provided and uptime, not on energy efficiency.

Servers are now using 1.2% of the total U.S. energy output. Google is building a larger server facility on the Columbia river, to take advantage of low-cost hyro power. Other companies are building server facilities in low temperature regions such as Siberia. While enlisting Mother Nature rather than fans and air conditioners is a smart, environmentally friendly strategy, it clearly has its limits.

SO WHAT IF?
Traditionally, companies each maintain their owner server farms, all designed to provide service at peak times, which is extremely cost and energy inefficient. Now, with energy prices making up a much larger percentage of corporate costs, more companies are outsourcing their IT services to third parties.