California sucking down more electricity than ever
July 24, 2006While the heat wave that gripped most of the nation has broken in this part of the country, at least for now, it’s apparently still in full force out West. They’re warning about possible rolling blackouts in California today.
The part of the story that caught my eye is the usage–they’re predicting peak 52,000 megawatts, a full 25% higher than the peaks during the last electric crisis five years ago. Just incredible to me that demand has climbed that much in such a short span of time, and that capacity has (mostly) kept up with that demand.
What the hell are they doing with all that electricity out there? Is that from Google running those gigantic data centers? Or Hollywood running all those computers to generate the huge special-effects movies like Superman Returns and Pirates of the Carribbean?