Computers and telecommuting were supposed to clear the air by keeping cars off the road. Unfortunately, computers have been proliferating even faster than people. The electronic revolution now consumes 290 billion kWh of electricity - nearly 8 percent of all US power. According to Forbes magazine, US electric demand is growing 3 percent a year and more than half of the new demand is the result of computer use. Within 10 years, Forbes estimates, the "digital-internet economy" will eat up 50 percent of the nation's power.
Forbes magazine estimates that 1 percent of current US electric demand goes just to build computers. Manufacturing, packaging, storing and moving each megabyte of data eats up about a half-pound of coal. (Fifty-six percent of US electricity comes from coal. Nuclear accounts for another 20 percent.) There are 300 US computer manufacturing plants and each consumes 10-15 MW, about as much as a small steel mill.
Today 200 billion electrically powered microprocessors regulate everything from laptops to car engines and phones. Forbes magazine estimates a typical PC set-up consumes 1,000 watts. In early 1999, the US boasted 50 million household computers and 150 million workstations - with 36 million more computers and 20 million Internet users expected to be added before year's end.
Forbes estimates that 17,000 existing US Internet companies each use "the electric load of a small village." Powering the Internet drains another 8 percent of the country's electric power. The power demands of the Internet's predicted global community of one billion users would be equal to the current total energy needs of the US.
In addition to computers, the burgeoning wireless Web network will require installing and powering 140,000 transmitter stations around the US.
CLEAN COMPUTER CONTRETEMPS
In May 1999, the European Commission proposed phasing-out all toxic, carcinogenic and bioaccumulative materials used in electronics manufacturing including lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and halogenated flame retardants. The EC directive would ban imports of plastic products with less than 5 percent recycled content and would require manufacturers to reclaim and recycle broken and discarded products.
US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky objected that the clean-computer law violates industry's sovereign right - under World Trade Organization rules - to make a buck at any cost.
In June, the International Campaign for Responsible Technology [CRT, www.igc.org/svtc/crt] called on the US to institute mandatory recycling of old computers. Each year, millions of computers are dumped into US landfills, where they leach mercury, lead, and toxic solvents into the land and water.
CRT noted that the industry's practice of issuing upgrades that render existing systems obsolete "threatens to make the disposal problem worse."
Coal-burning Computers