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US Infrastructure ran an article last month about how much energy we use to power the Internet. The above is an in interesting representation of what that power consumptions looks like. From updating our Facebook profiles to reading the news to watching last night’s sitcoms, the Internet has subsumed nearly every aspect of our lives.
And behind that ever-increasing demand are large-scale data centers across the globe, computing 1’s and 0’s. “Between 2000 and 2005, the energy consumed by such data centres doubled, both in the US and worldwide,” according to the article’s author. “As more and more people demand more from online media, then more power is needed to power the centres that keep the Internet and servers running.”
The troubling part is that this growth doesn’t seem to be slowing, despite increasingly efficient computational capabilities by servers themselves.
Kelton Research recently conducted a study that found that servers globally waste $25 billion annually. One of the more shocking results from the study is that nearly three-quarters of the respondents it surveyed claimed that 15 percent or more of their servers “aren’t doing anything useful.”
Many organization talk about “greening” their operations by adding solar panels to their roofs or eliminating disposables in their break rooms–and these are commendable endeavors–but learning about these kinds of disparities also points to the fact that corporate environmental stewardship isn’t quite as comprehensive or holistic as it needs to be.
