The Energy Saved By Ditching DVDs Could Power 200,000 Homes

Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The environmental benefits of streaming a movie (or downloading it) rather than purchasing a DVD are staggering, according to a new U.S. government study by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If all DVDs purchased in 2011 were streamed instead, the energy savings would have been enough to meet the electricity demands of roughly 200,000 households. It would have cut roughly 2 billion kilograms of carbon emissions. According to the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, even when you take into account cloud storage, data servers, the streaming device, streaming uses much less energy than purchasing a DVD. If, like me, you're thinking, 'who buys DVDs anymore, anyways?', the answer is 'a lot of people.'" The linked paper is all there, too — not just an abstract and a paywall.

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[Khyber]

Not including the power used by DRM enforcement
Not including the power used to burn a disc, let alone harvest the material to make it
Not including the power of the people involved in making such a thing happen
Not including the money used to lobby Congress
Not including the money used to lobby the EPA
Not including the money to lobby the FCC

If you're this fucking stupid, you deserve what you get.