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by At first you would think avatars such as those used on MMORPGs like Second Life, the Sims and World of Warcraft would not have much impact on the real world other than the game play they provide for their actual human players. But what if it could be shown that these avatars leave an environmental footprint larger than actual people in developing countries do? Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life is running about 4000 servers right now to keep between 10,000 and 15,000 avatars “alive”, and they are growing rapidly. How much power does this life support system for the avatars use if we take the middle number of 12,500 avatars on a given day?
If the average PC uses 120 watts, and a server uses 200 watts, plus 50 more for air-conditioning, then (4,000 servers x 250 watts x 24 hours) + (12,500 avatars x 120 watts x 24 hours) = 60,000,000 watt-hours or 60,000 kilowatt-hours. That gives a per-capita usage of 60,000 / 12,500 = 4.8 kWh. Over a year’s time that equates to 1752 kWh per avatar. The average human on a worldwide basis uses about 2400 kWh making each avatar at the present time below the average use. But taking into consideration that people in developing countries use less than 2400 kWh; your MMORPG avatar may be consuming more energy to exist than a real person.
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An obvious solution for a power hungry avatar by stopgap :: NR3 :: Show
That is why those people will be harvested to provide energy for virtual entities such as avatars. If my calculations are correct, a properly reconfigured person from a developing country can provide up to 100W of power yet at the same time gladly relinquishing 2400 kWh of energy thanks to the reconfiguration. At this rate by harnessing the power of their own bodies every single person in a developing country will live a more prosperous and fulfilling life through a virtual avatar.
Odd math? by Xtremegene :: NR4 :: Show
Am I brain dead or is the math here not entirely sound?
Since no one player is (hopefully) logged in 24/7 I don’t think the 1752 kWh per avatar figure counts for much when compared to the 2400kWh per human figure.
Let’s say the average player plays for 2 hours a day, every day, while occupying its requisite share of a server (4000 servers / 12500 people at any given time = 0.32 of a server used).
(0.32 server x 250 watts x 2 hours) + (1 PC x 120 watts x 2 hours)= 400 Watts
400 W x 365 Days = 146 kWh per person, per year, for his/her avatar (ends up being 1/12th the original value anyways, I love my wandering mind.)
I’m not sure if my method is completely logical, but it makes more sense to me since people are not on Second Life (or any other MMORPG…I think) all day. If all one needed to survive was to be in "Second Life", then we might as well all move over there now since we would decrease our energy consumption by ~30%!
Goth Google Saves Energy by tomtolman :: NR5 :: Show
I just found a related story on digg.com. EcoIron.com claims that a "black Google" would save 3,000 Megawatt-hours a year.
His analysis for the energy savings seems like it is only accurate for CRT monitors and not LCD’s, but he does seem to bring up an interesting point. Maybe OmniNerd should go Goth too and help save the world from global warming!