Agrees with Edpat.
Electronic communication isn't necessarily more Eco-Friendly.
I have a pdf stating some fact, but it's failing on my attempt to attach
I can quote some info from news reports that you might be referring to:
Say you do a Google search. Your query kicks into action about 1,000 servers at various Google data centres. Those computers scan billions of web pages already in Google’s archives and spit out an answer.
Total time elapsed: 0.2 seconds on average. Meanwhile, Google’s data centres are also constantly combing the Internet to update their archives of web pages.
All those computers have a voracious appetite for energy, especially for cooling equipment to prevent overheating.
The Internet now consumes two to three per cent of the world’s electricity.
If the Internet was a country, it would be the planet’s fifth-biggest consumer of power, ahead of India and Germany. The Internet’s power needs now rival those of the aviation industry and are expected to nearly double by 2020.
Apple’s 46,000-square-metre iDataCenter is set to open in North Carolina this spring and will use an estimated 100 megawatts of power – as much as about 100,000 homes.
Apple’s mega-facility is part of a cluster of gigantic new data centres coming on line in North Carolina that are powered largely by cheap and highly polluting coal power. Google has a 44,000-square-metre data centre in the state that will eventually consume an estimated 60 to 100 MW. Facebook has a 28,000-square-metre facility under construction there that will eat up 40 MW.
The three facilities form “North Carolina’s dirty data triangle” whose power comes from coal, the most polluting of all fossil fuels and the world’s single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
best, gordo