Video Games Consume More Electricity Than 25 Power Plants Can Produce

A few years ago, Evan Mills' 15-year-old son Nathaniel wanted to get into gaming. To juice up the experience, he wanted to build his own computer like more and more gamers do. Mills is an energy expert, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so he struck a deal with his son: "I'll bankroll it if you help me measure the hell out of it and let's see how much energy this is really going to use." His son agreed, and they "went at it," Mills recalls. "We had a power meter and all the tools. And when the results came in--it was jaw dropping."