[53945] in North American Network Operators' Group

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More studies: Estimates were wrong

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Thu Dec 5 00:41:41 2002

Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 00:41:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu



David Wessel's column in the Wall Street Journal covers the debate over
how much electricity does the Internet use.
(paid subscription)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1039040314228813793,00.html?mod=technology%5Ffeatured%5Fstories%5Fhs

Mark Mills wrote a paper how the US was running short on power, and the
Internet was consuming 13% of it.  Jonathan Koomey writes research papers
that the number is about 3%.

To quote the column:
"It's an instructive case study in how a simple assertion of questionable
accuracy can be repeated so often that it is accepted as fact by people in
the press, in government and on Wall Street who ought to be more
discerning."


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