4min chapter

COMPLEXITY cover image

Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park

COMPLEXITY

CHAPTER

The Energy of Punch Cards

The amount of energy required to run our digital data home is roughly the same as the total amount of electrical energy we utilize as a global civilization at this time. 2.5 quintillion bits of new data are generated by our species every single day every 24 hours and that's something like a trillion times all of Shakespeare's products every 24 hours. If you look at the trends in energy requirements for computation for data storage and data transmission they suggest that perhaps even if we have some improvements in efficiency unless those improvements are extraordinary then in a few decades time we may be at a point where there won't be any more electricity left over, says Dr Andrew Keen.

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