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The issue of power requirements for all the hardware that the "new economy" runs on is big, big, big and is going get bigger in the next few years.

It's been estimated that 8% of total U.S. power consumption is related to IT, and that figure is going to climb. In addition to pressure on the demand side, there's a problem on the supply side as the last several summers have shown. Power companies are offering people rebates for allowing them to install thermostats which they can control remotely to manage power demand in peak periods.

The first issue of the Huber-Mills Power Report (PDF) at www.powercosm.com is very interesting reading.

The Wall Street Journal has also run a few interesting articles recently. "Got a computer? More power to you," (September 7 page A26) is available here. The WSJ ran another article entitled "Cisco opposes plan for new power plant" (September 18 page A2) which I couldn't find, but Google has related things here. It's somewhat ironic that Cisco is against more power to run its hardware; it wants to build new office space nearby and is concerned about quality of life issues. A power company executive said "if this plant isn't built I'm guaranteeing you outages...I'm guaranteeing you an economic disaster in the valley." That's hardly coming from a disinterested party, but it's still a hot topic.