Speaking of Google, their carbon footprint is
already enormous. No-one outside the company
knows exactly how many servers they have running
in parallel to continuously index the Internet
and provide services such as GMail, Google Maps,
Google Books etc. etc. ad infinitum; some
estimates put it at over 1 million -- and the power consumption is huge.
A paper by one of Google's principal hardware
engineers paints a gloomy picture:
"If performance per watt is to remain constant
over the next few years, power costs could easily
overtake hardware costs, possibly by a large margin."
"For the most aggressive scenario (50 percent
annual growth rates), power costs by the end of
the decade would dwarf server prices (note that
this doesn’t account for the likely increases in
energy costs over the next few years). In this
extreme situation, in which keeping machines
powered up costs significantly more than the
machines themselves, one could envision bizarre
business models in which the power company will
provide you with free hardware if you sign a long-term power contract. "
"The possibility of computer equipment power
consumption spiraling out of control could have
serious consequences for the overall
affordability of computing, not to mention the overall health of the planet. "
Barroso, Luiz André, "The Price of Performance",
ACM Queue vol. 3, no. 7 - September 2005
http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=330
Cheers,
T.
At 04:13 AM 2007-02-14, you wrote:
>All,
>
>
>
>I was thinking about how a museum might make its activities more
>sustainable, in terms of reducing its carbon footprint, etc. And then I
>got to thinking about the museum's website (as is my job) and the
>internet in general. On a large scale, how much energy does the internet
>use up? Is anyone aware of any figures? On a local scale, we could
>evaluate the energy used up by the servers hosting our site, and the PCs
>and infrastructure inside our Museum. But how far could we decrease
>these (I'm not going to even mention 'off-setting' as an option), even
>as we aim to increase our site visits, and ensure good bandwidth and
>zero downtime? We increasingly demand that our websites are accessible,
>and require of 3rd parties that they help us to achieve that - is there
>a place for requirements that our ISPs use renewable sources of energy?
>Just one thought. Anyway - if anyone else has any thoughts on this, I'd
>be really interested, and perhaps we can start a discussion. I have done
>a few searches on Google, but nothing has jumped out at me as a major
>movement to a greener internet.
>
>
>
>Oh, and a happy Valentine's Day to all MCG members.
>
>
>
>Best,
>
>Matthew
>
>Head of Web | Department of Learning and Information | The British
>Museum | www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk <http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/>
>
>tel: 020 7323 8169 | work mobile: 07971 433841
>
>--
>
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>Explore the New World through Elizabethan eyes.
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>
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>
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