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RE: Odd math?
Your stock portfolio (if you have one) could be using more energy than a real person. (Maybe your bank account uses more energy than you.)
I think you're thinking about it backwards ... the energy that the "avatars" (actually the servers) use is already part of the calculation that produces the per capita consumption figures:
Consumptionper capita = Consumptiontotal / Population
So, isn't saying that avatars consume 75% as much energy as a person (or 13% if you live in the U.S., where per capita consumption is 13,242 kWh/year) "double dipping" the numbers?
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RE: Odd math?
I really can’t totally defend the logic that was used to get some of the numbers in this. I do think you have a point though; it does seem to be unfair to attribute 24 hours of PC time to avatar energy use. But the server time really does need to be counted because the “life state” of each avatar needs to be maintained 24 hours a day in order to stay “alive”. It could be argued that if Linden labs didn’t exist, the energy draw of their servers and other equipment wouldn’t be there.
Incidentally the same analogy could be made for something like a stock portfolio or something similar. Your stock portfolio (if you have one) could be using more energy than a real person. (Maybe your bank account uses more energy than you.) This article is an interesting concept only because instead of the data being a bunch of boring financial numbers, the stored data is used to resemble a virtual human, and is also of a recreational nature.
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