In June, the Department of Commerce released its third report on the new economy, called 'Digital Economy 2000'. "The report suggests that e-business and the extraordinary dynamism of industries that produce IT products and services are harbingers of a new era of higher, sustained growth with low inflation and low unemployment. The report also analyzes the forces behind these developments."

Available on the web at www.esa.doc.gov - we should have a link to this from the n4e page..

-- Anonymous, July 06, 2000

Answers

An issue worthy of discussion is the impact of the growth of internet infrastructure and its requirements for very high reliabiliy power. The emergence of internet server farms represents a new, high-load demand that has not been well modeled in load growth planning. While this demand is likely to be offset through more efficient, less energy intensive economic activity, these large, new loads are likely to have a disruptive effect.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2000

The impact of these "server farms" has been overblown. There are particular areas where they may be important, but in the aggregate, they are at most a small contributer to overall load growth. Also, their need for high reliability power will be met by them adding uninterruptible power supplies on their own. The utility system will never deliver power as reliably as these users demand--they must compensate for that by purchasing equipment to ensure reliability.

-- Anonymous, July 28, 2000