Oops: UK cloud computing study reveals higher environmental impact

Deutsche Welle is reporting on a study that shows all of that cloud computing stuff is anti-sustainability...  

"This level of power consumption [of cloud computing by 2021] is clearly unsustainable," he wrote, adding that it would take a 60-fold improvement in computer energy efficiency to make it feasible.

When you read the entire article, you quickly see that one assumption is layered upon the next, such as the global demand for download data raising to 3.2GB/person/day. The suggestion from the study's authors:

• Reduce digital waste by not subscribing to unwanted podcasts or downloading unnecessary video or audio.

Hear, let me turn down the volume of my music player. Every byte helps.

 

Comments

[Kevin Quigley]

I do think this is an issue though Ralph. I do think that at some point in the future digital waste (as the article states) will be treated like physical waste - certainly in businesses.

Personally I think the figure of 3.2GB per day is probably an underestimate. No idea about Canada but here in the UK most telecoms companies are trying to sell TV packages via broadband. Take the BBC iPlayer as an example. In our household at least, this has gone from no use to being used by my kids to watch probably 50% of the content. Our data consumption runs to over 100GB a month sometimes.

There IS a cost to this - in terms of infrastructure and energy use. The new UK Government is in favour of a layered internet access - you pay more you get full access at high speed - you pay less you get a throttled service. How long before they start to dream up added ways of taxing internet use? A data consumption tax. Not long I bet.

[Kevin De Smet]

I find it kind of crazy how little the internet has been taxed thus far (i said that whispering so nobody can hear...)