Bush isn't the only one to use the 8 percent figure. Over the last 18 months, that estimate - first published in a May 31, 1999, article in Forbes by Peter Huber and Mark Mills - has appeared in reports issued by investment banks, in energy projections issued by natural gas companies, and in numerous magazines and newspapers.
But is it, in fact, an accurate reflection of reality present and future?
Questions about the Internet and electricity usage gained velocity this fall, after tech guru George Gilder and the Energy Information Administration both weighed in on the topic. In September, Bambi Francisco at CBS' MarketWatch.com reported that Gilder was predicting the Internet would "eventually use as much electricity as the entire U.S. economy does today." In late November, the EIA significantly increased its projections for future electricity usage and named computers as a cause.
Meanwhile, California continues to be rocked by serious electricity shortages. On Dec. 7, the state declared a Stage 3 emergency, meaning that residential and commercial users could face rolling blackouts. On Dec. 13, the power shortage became so severe that U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson threatened to hit out-of-state power producers with federal price controls if they didn't begin shipping more electricity to California immediately. Richardson also ordered federal hydroelectric networks to boost power generation. His moves helped the state avert widespread blackouts, but the long-term prospects for California's electric power system are unclear.
These predictions and events have helped fuel a surge in the prices of once-stolid electric utility stocks. They have also contributed to the widespread belief that the Internet is causing big increases in domestic electricity usage. And while evidence supports that belief, it's not yet certain that the Internet is causing or will cause Americans to use vast amounts of additional electric power.
There's another problem: Huber and Mills' 8 percent estimate appears to be wrong. All office, telecommunications and network equipment in the country actually uses about 3 percent of the power consumed in the U.S., said a group of staff scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That analysis is supported by Steven Taub, an associate director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consulting firm. The Lawrence Berkeley scientists are "much closer to right," Taub said.
Questions about the Internet and electricity consumption are part of a broader debate over global warming. If Huber and Mills are right, the Internet's expansion is contributing to the warming of the planet and is therefore damaging the environment. If their critics are right and the Net is lowering the quantity of power needed to keep the economy humming along, it should be having a positive impact on the environment.
Despite the attack on their estimate, Huber and Mills have refused to back off their 8 percent figure, triggering a rancorous debate over their motives, methods and credentials.
Not surprisingly, the debate is suffused with politics: Huber and Mills are free-market conservatives who argue that the solution to looming electricity shortages is to build more big power plants. Their critics, generally speaking, are left-leaning energy analysts who favor distributed generation plants, higher-efficiency products and renewable energy programs, while opposing big new power plants. Increased use of the Internet, these critics argue, is increasing productivity and significantly reducing the nation's "energy intensity" - the amount of power needed to produce goods and services.
