Today, Donald MacKenzie gave a fabulous talk at the University of Michigan about his recent research into high frequency trading (here’s a LRB piece of his on the topic). He noted in the talk that the data centers where high frequency traders locate their servers need to be kept quite cold, to ensure that the server function optimally. In a working paper, MacKenzie notes that (in part because of their cooling needs) “data centres have made the finance sector the largest power consumer in New Jersey.”

Air conditioning is also a major expense in a setting about as far as you can get from New Jersey and high finance: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a retired brigadier general (as reported by NPR), “When you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most isolated places in the world — escorting, command and control, medevac support — when you throw all that infrastructure in, we’re talking over $20 billion [per year].” As the story elaborates, “To power an air conditioner at a remote outpost in landlocked Afghanistan, a gallon of fuel has to be shipped into Karachi, Pakistan, then driven 800 miles over 18 days to Afghanistan on roads that are sometimes little more than “improved goat trails,” Anderson says. “And you’ve got risks that are associated with moving the fuel almost every mile of the way.””

Just an idle thought, but I would eagerly read a history of air conditioning (with a focus on its importance in unusual places).