Is the Internet becoming uncool for greenies?

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 14 January 2009 07:24

Science - Energy

A leading analyst believes that the Internet is in danger of becoming a target for green groups and anti-global warming organisations because of the massive power consumption of data centres. Is it possible that the greenies may soon target the Internet industry as environmental vandals?

According to Dr Steve Hodgkinson, research director at technology analyst group Ovum, Internet data centres are increasing being labelled as inefficient power hogs exacerbating global warming.

"Internet usage is growing and is now recognised as having a measurable impact on global CO2 emissions," Dr Hodgkinson states ina research note.

"Global Internet traffic is estimated to be growing at around 50–60% each year, with current users being the tip of the iceberg – comprising only a quarter of the World’s population. There is a lot more growth in user numbers and traffic volumes to come in the future, as new users come online in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America.

"This growth scenario is starting to attract attention in terms of the energy inputs and outputs of the massive data centres that power the Internet. The simple, and apparently benign, act of initiating an online search, updating a blog or chatting on a social network inevitably causes servers to heat up a little bit more in a data centre somewhere – and a power station to spew out more CO2 to generate the electricity."

Dr Hodgkinson notes that the big Internet players are now figuratively starting to feel the heat from environmental advocates and researchers, with even the biggest being forced to defend themselves.

"Researchers are now starting to attempt to quantify the energy impact of Internet usage, with Google being fingered as an obvious target," he states.

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