I'm sorry, but what about people who WORK? This would include everyone from engineers to editors, graphic designers to architects, writers to ... thousands of others.

I cannot do my work on a tablet or a smartphone, even though I own both. They simply can not run the programs I need. They are pretty much toys.

40 million a year. Plus 12 million a year for the water to keep the systems liquid cooled.

As long as green-powered server farms and pc's are exempt.

How about Bluffdale which will require 1.5 million gallons of water a day to cool?

Says nothing about existing computers/servers, but says that new computers must be designed to meet the standards that the DOE imposes for them.

Then some administrator can claim "he" saved all that energy by requiring industry ressearch to find the tech needed, redesign the equipment using the tech needed, retool to produce the new equipment, and then provide it to the market with whatever new price tag or limitations are required for meeting the new standards.

He will care about the energy savings, and it will be a big selling point for some politician or politicians. The additional staff, time, money for research; the costs of redesigning and retooling; and any inefficiencies from limitations or increased cost from a large price tag will not be mentioned.

At the same time, there'll be something "new" to coax people into replacing their old equipment.

Single-minded changes often lead to problems. A demand for increased gas mileage led to smaller vehicles which led to increased needs for driver and passenger protection. Along the way we saved gas and spent more money and lost lives. But we saved energy.

This change might not matter in the least. Fairly often regulators jump on the bandwagon and just try to speed up or impose something that the market is already doing. You're not really "leading" if you let things get better by themselves.

work from home and need PCs. I'm one of them.