Coal provides 40% of the world’s growing demand for electricity.
Marshall Institute Director Mark Mills released “The Cloud Begins With Coal,” an examination of the energy demands of the global information technology economy.
The information economy is a blue-whale economy with its energy uses mostly out of sight. Based on a mid-range estimate, the world’s Information-Communications-Technologies (ICT) ecosystem uses about 1,500 TWh of electricity annually, equal to all the electric generation of Japan and Germany combined — as much electricity as was used for global illumination in 1985. The ICT ecosystem now approaches 10% of world electricity generation. Or in other energy terms – the zettabyte era already uses about 50% more energy than global aviation.
This is Fossil Fuel funded nonsense, and has been thoroughly debunked: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/25/2518361/iphone-electricity-refrigerator/
This is terrific news. More and more people are using information, exposing themselves to a range of ideas they could not get before, visiting virtually things they would never have seen like Maru the Japanese cat. Information travels around the world instead of people traveling in person. This coal-fueled revolution is available to most of the world’s people. And if the tyrants and the Puritans get out of the way, the rest will have it too.
It uses a good deal of electricty and uses it to wonderful effect. Hurrah the cloud! Hurrah the terrawatt hours! Hurrah the coal!