The advent of the Internet has greatly improved energy efficiency, according to new research conducted in North Amercia.

Services based on the Internet that preclude the need for travel, such as online video rental, have increased the economic output of each unit of energy that is consumed by a factor of ten, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

For every kilowatt-hour of electricity used to power an Internet-connected computer, ten kilowatt-hours are saved by services that would otherwise have required the use of a combustion engine in a car or other locomotive.

The study studied historical records of ‘energy intensity’, a measure of the amount of power needed to create $1 of economic wealth. In the decades before the Internet took off in the mid-nineties, energy intensity was improving by less than 1% every year.

But in 1995, there the rate of improvement in energy efficiency jumped to 2.9%. That figure has since levelled off at around 2.4%.

“Had [the United States] continued to consume power at the rate of prior years, it would today be using the energy equivalent of 1 billion barrels of oil more [per year]” than before the advent of the Internet in the mid-nineties, said John Laitner of the ACEEE who co-wrote the study.