Internet Use Will Require 1,700 Power Plants by 2030

According to an article in

Fast Company, researchers from the University of Bristol in the U.K. have calculated that everyone on Earth will download an average of 3 gigabytes of data per day, on average, by 2030. The power needed to sustain that data flow, the researchers found, would be 1,175 gigawatts, or the equivalent of 1,175 average coal-fired power plants. The solution, according to researchers Chris Preist and Paul Shabajee, is two-fold: improve the efficiency of servers and other equipment, and design websites to be less data-intensive (using medium-resolution images, for example, when high-resolution images are not needed). Industry giants Google and Yahoo! have been making large strides in data center efficiency, which has Preist hopeful (see “Yahoo! Data Center Sets High Mark for Efficiency,”

EBN Oct. 2010). He told Fast Company, “There is still a good chance that broadband connectivity can be provided equitably to the majority of the world.”