[source]
When a large part of the workforce does office work, as is the case in advanced economies, there is no real necessity to be physically present in the office anymore, provided a high speed internet connection is available so solutions like Skype can replace face-to-face communication. Take Holland. Average commuting distance 37 km. That’s at least a gallon a day of fuel. Here is an example of a 24 inch monitor that merely consumes 2 Watt. iPad’s can consume as little as 2.5 Watt, that’s nothing! According to the New York Times, Google needs 260 MW to power all these google search requests, youtube video and gmail. So what? That’s 52 of these 5 MW windturbines at a cost of 250 million euro/340 million $, a fraction of google’s yearly profit. The car may be heading for the exit, but IT is here to stay. And if there is no electrical power available use this 20 Watt gadget to power your computer and stay warm at the same time.

[Der Spiegel]
What Gazprom does with fossil fuels, namely pumping huge amounts through pipelines, Google does the same with data, pumping huge amounts of bytes through glass fiber cables. Google has future, Gazprom has not.