Electronics power (Was Bitten by NIMBY)

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Dec 16 2000 - 06:57:08 MST


"Michael M. Butler" <butler@comp-lib.org> writes:

> ...an article about how evil wicked opportunistic power scalpers are
> charging huge spot market prices for peak power, mentions near the end
> that the California power crisis is in part due to the claimed fact that
> a web hosting site can use ten times as much power as a normal business
> office building.
>
> Meanwhile, pundits have been pooh-poohing TransMeta's Crusoe processor,
> which was designed to run Intel code and sip power.

I'm having a discussion here with my friends on the power needs of a
really wired society. So what does the list think about the likely
power needs when everybody got their own wearable/smart cellphone on
all the time, ubiquitious computing is in every corner, wireless
internet in the air and bluetooth (or similar) devices everywhere?

It seems that to a first approximation everything would need sizeable
power, but on the other hand since we don't want to switch batteries
in every gizmo all the time powersaving is going to be a big thing
(not to mention limiting heating). On the third hand, sending things
wireless means that we will dissipate energy into the ether. On the
fourth hand more virtual communications *may* lessen the need for
physical transports - but then again, remember the "paperless office".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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