For the week of June 13 - June 19, 2001

No simplistic solutions to growing energy demand

Commentary by PAT MURPHY

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In a society that’s literally hooked on computers, what happens if the switches are turned on and there’s no juice?

The ripple effect of an electricity shortage would be unthinkable.

Impossible? Not according to one of the nation’s respected energy experts, Roger Anderson, of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who’s given us a wake-up call.

Anderson characterizes the coming of computers and the Internet as one of three major 20^th century technological breakthroughs that have placed unusual burdens on electricity resources. The other two were the arrival of lights and motors in the early 1900s and air conditioning in the 1950s.

Now, he argues that unless $50 billion is invested in new electrical transmission lines connecting nine separate national grid systems, plus computerized controls, energy-hungry computer equipment concentrated in certain areas will be at risk.

These statistics tell the story of demand: in 1995, there were 20,000 servers in the world servicing computers. Today, there are 6 million servers and 200 million personal computers.

One reason computer users and therefore the public as a whole are ignorant about electricity demands of computers is because servers that gobble up energy are out of sight. They are located far away in places known as server farms. One such proposed server farm in the South Bronx, for example, will need twice as much electricity as the entire World Trade Center complex.

Anderson is alarmed that President Bush’s budget doesn’t contain any funding for development of a command and control system for rapidly shifting power from one grid in one part of the nation to another where demand might be urgent.

If major electricity shortages shut down servers and computers throughout the country like blackouts have interrupted California life, essential national services would be paralyzed ¾ banking, air traffic control, health care, virtually all media, corporate records, government at all levels, industry manufacturing, hospitals, not to speak of millions of PC users who’ve built their lives and small businesses around their desktops.

A disturbing indication of the Bush administration’s attitude on electricity is in this development a few days ago.

When Californians pleaded for price controls on soaring costs of electricity (some estimates say they’ve jumped as much as 700 percent in some cases), President Bush pooh-poohed the urgency and said the free market would take care of the problem.

So, will the president and his mentors casually rely on the free market to solve problems affecting the nation’s computers and their servers?

Whatever its virtues, the free market lacks the authority to create and enforce interconnections between nine national electrical grids with a single command and control system.

If energy expert Anderson is correct, and demand continues to outstrip supply of electricity, the Bush presidency that seems intent on turning back the clock in so many other ways could be risking rolling back the clock in the computer age.

Will manual typewriters and hand cranked adding machines return to America’s future?

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