The article talks about the cost of transferring a file from the cloud vs loading it from a local harddrive. It's not only the amount of energy used for that a

The article talks about the cost of transferring a file from the cloud vs loading it from a local harddrive. It's not only the amount of energy used for that at the datacenter, it's also summing up all the fractions of power usage per GB of the used fiber connection, the repeaters on this fiber connection, routers, switches, losses in power supplies, energy required for air conditioning the hardware, the phone/cable/mobile infrastructure that also has switches, repeaters, ... until ones own modem, router and computer at the own location that is needing energy to operate.