A new report from Greenpeace entitled “Make IT Green: Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change” highlights the impact of an increasingly online world in terms of carbon emissions and how renewable energy must play a greater role.
“Cloud computing” is a metaphor for the Internet, based on infrastructure where rather than information being stored on your own device, it is delivered to your device in real time via the Internet.
Greenpeace’s report builds on prior Smart2020 research, that showed at current rates of growth, data centres and telecommunication networks will chew through around 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020. This would be triple the current consumption and represent more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.
As massive a figure as that may seem, Greenpeace says it may be even higher. Based on 2007 data from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the estimated electricity consumption of US data centers is 1.7 times larger than Smart 2020 report estimated for the US and Canada combined. Applied globally, this would see the 194.2 billion kWh skyrocket to 330 billion kWh. Combined with telecommunications related emissions, the figure in 202o would be in the region of 622.6 billion kWh.
Greenpeace says IT companies can reduce impact by advocating for solutions that increase the use of renewable energy and is calling on IT industry giants to put their power behind lobbying for government policies that give priority grid access for renewable sources like wind power and solar energy.
The organisation also admonishes Internet companies that build highly-efficient data centres that will be substantially powered by coal-fired electricity as “efficiency by itself is not green if you are simply working to maximise output from the cheapest and dirtiest energy source available.”
“Make IT: Green Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change” can be downloaded here. (PDF)
