Big Data's Gigantic Energy Use Now 7% Of Global Electricity Consumption; Projected At 12% By 2020

[hatrack]

EDIT

Every service that Google provides is provided via its huge data centres, which consume vast amounts of electricity to power and cool the servers, and are therefore responsible for the emission of significant amounts of CO2. Since the advent of the modern smartphone in about 2007 our reliance on distant data centres has become total, because everything we do on our phones involves an interaction with the “cloud” and therefore has a carbon footprint.

The size of this footprint has been growing. At the moment, about 7% of the world’s electricity consumption is taken by our digital ecosystem but this is forecast to rise to 12% by 2020 and is expected to grow annually at about 7% through to 2030.

The big internet companies are acutely aware of this. Electricity costs money and they are fanatical about reducing costs. And they are desperate to avoid the PR downsides of being perceived as energy hogs. So they have responded to a challenge issued by the environmental group Greenpeace some years ago – to commit to having all of their activities powered by renewable sources. Facebook, Apple and Google made this “100% renewable” commitment four years ago and have now been joined by nearly 20 other internet companies.

The trouble is that server farms and networks account for only 50% of the electricity consumption of our networked world. The devices we use consume another 34% and the industry that manufactures them takes up the remaining 16%. Making environmental progress on these fronts will be much harder. A desktop PC running eight hours a day, for example, emits 175kg of CO2 in a year. So you can imagine the carbon footprint of a large city office block that has thousands of desktop PCs running for the whole of a working day. Multiply that by all the office blocks in the centre of London and you get an idea of the environmental impact of even the humble PC.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/26/trouble-with-bitcoin-big-data-huge-energy-bill

[hunter]

1. Amazon is going to use one of its data centers to heat its Seattle campus.

Amazon Heats Building With Data Center Waste Heat

Old tech- in the form of hydronic heating– meets new in nearby data centers, creating ‘green heating’ in Amazon’s latest new buildings in Seattle, WA. The offices and work areas of the new Amazon buildings will be heated by utilizing the waste heat of a nearby data center, and Amazon’s not stopping there.

Heat from the data center in the basement of the Westin Building across the street from Amazon’s proposed bio domes will be used to heat water, that will then be pumped to the domes where it will provide heat, then return to the Westin to be recharged and help cool the data center.

In addition, the company is planning the creation of a “heating district” – several buildings that will heated using the waste heat of one massive data center. The “heating district” will consist of several buildings on the three-block Amazon campus. The Westin Building’s owner, Amazon’s development arm, and a construction and energy service company, have teamed up to form the district and have filed documents with the Seattle City Council, which have been approved.

--more--

https://greenbuildingelements.com/2014/09/29/amazon-heats-building-data-center-waste-heat/

Where I live in California large buildings require cooling most of the year. People, lighting, and office machines output more than enough heat to keep a large building warm even when it's chilly outside.

With a tip of the hat to NNadir, one has got to wonder how much carbon dioxide is dumped into the atmosphere by people talking about wind and solar on the internet.

I do nearly all of my internet browsing from a little Chromebook to minimize my energy use. When I first signed onto DU in 2002 I was using a power hungry desktop computer with a color cathode ray tube monitor.