Cloud computing has been suggested as having the potential to reduce our dependence on hardware to access online services such as Google, Facebook, iTunes and as such should minimise the amount of e-waste generated annually while simultaneously lowering out our carbon footprint [1]. Cloud computing, nevertheless, still relies on data centres to handle the over 1.2 zettabytes of digital information that our tweets, Youtube videos, Facebook updates, iTunes downloads, emails and other data transfers so far have generated (1 zettabyte = 1 trillion gigabytes or 250 billion DVDs)[2]. In a world where we seem to be more concerned with what the environmental impacts of our recycling practices or car mileage we tend to forget what the impacts of our social media and entertainment habits have on the environment. Cloud computing, has in fact done little but to take the bulky hardware that we used to rely on, replace it with small handheld devices like iPhones and Blackberries, and gather all the “the dirty work” data centres, also known as “server farms”.
It has been estimated that watching one second of video on the internet generates 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide. Youtube has reported that it gets around 2 billion views a day. With a conservative average estimate of each video being watched for 10 seconds we find that Youtube videos alone produce 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day [3].
Internet entertainment and social media such as Youtube and Facebook rely on internet servers to process the data required to provide us with these services. Globally, there are over 44 million internet servers located in the data centres that annually consume over 130 billion kWh. These data centres contribute to 2% of the earth’s global carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to that of the aviation industry. Other comparisons that have been made estimate that if the Internet was a country, it would globally rank fifth in the amount of energy consumed, just behind Japan and Russia [4].
A recent report published by Greenpeace, entitled “How Dirty is Your Data” [5] concluded that the tech industry’s brownest companies are Apple and Facebook. These centres rely on coal-based electricity more so than their rivals. The report highlights that over 53% of Facebook’s facilities rely on coal to power the cloud. The companies that were found to be the greenest were Yahoo and Google. Google and Facebook each take up 10% of the global server space and as such contribute significantly to data centre carbon emissions.
Facebook’s data centre, however, is slowly mixing in wind and solar into its reliance on coal. By doing so, it has been estimated that Facebook should be able to conserve 2.5 million kWh per year, saving 1,065 tonnes of carbon. Progress has also been reported by Google, whose goal is to become carbon neutral in the future. Google have in fact created Google Energy, a company that invests in renewable energy start-ups and are pumping more than US$100 million into windfarms, US$350 million into solar power, and US$20 million into Makani Power. The latter is a company that generates electricity by flying kites that can tap into altitudes that wind-turbines cannot reach.
Currently, only 24% of the world’s population is online, but this number is set to increase dramatically in the future. Similarly, projections estimate that our internet usage will quadruple by 2014. The big question is whether any progress made in greening our date centres today will ultimately be swallowed up by our hunger for all things digital.
[1] http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/Cool%20IT/dirty-data-report-greenpeace.pdf
[2] http://www.energysavingwarehouse.co.uk/news/285/20/Can-Clouds-Save-Energy.html
[3] http://sustainabilityforthepartiallymotivated.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/is-the-internet-environmentally-friendly/
[4] http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-22/tech/greenpeace.apple.dirtiest_1_greenpeace-coal-and-nuclear-energy-wind-and-solar-power?_s=PM:TECH
[5] See [1]
