In the last 10 years, we’ve been lulled into a false sense of being ecologically friendly and promoting sustainability by the digital age’s smartphone, Kindle, tablet and a plethora of electronic gadgets, all of which claim to be „green”, energy efficient, sustainable and good for the environment. But is modern-day Information Communication Technology, or ICT for short, really as ecologically sound an industry as we think? Apparently not…

In a recent paper by Mark Mills, CEO of Digital Power Group, an investment consultancy dealing with technology, called „The Cloud Begins With Coal„, the author provides some astonishing – and disturbing, to say the least – details on how much power the modern digital devices actually consume and where it comes from. Unlike what we’ve been told, the gadgets around you eat up as much power as other household appliances, while using cloud data storage and processing is possibly as harmful as using jets to commute. And even though the paper was actually supported by the coal industry’s National Mining Association, the results are grim: even trusty and dirty coal won’t be enough to get us safely through the electronic revolution.

iPhone vs. Refigerator – 0:1

The trouble starts at the very bottom of the ladder, with a typical user. Apparently, no matter what Tim Cook or other tech gurus tell you, the smartphone is as energy-hungry as your typical refrigerator. Consider this: an iPhone uses on average 361 kWh a year (if connected to a wireless broadband network), whereas an Energy Star-certified medium-sized refrigerator will consume 322 kWh over a similar period of time. The main issue is using Wi-Fi, stay-charging your iPhone and data use like video streaming. As it turns out, the biggest culprit here is our Internet connectivity. Just staying within range of a wireless network is already ramping up your electricity consumption by a significant amount, while actually using the Internet to Skype, watch Youtube or surf the Web further compounds the amount of energy needed to boost and sustain the radio signal.

Bryan Walsh, the Times’ energy industry reporter, notes that there’s more to this problem than simple smartphone use: every time you hear about something „green”, what looks so attractive and nice is mostly its static, „typical” usage, without the human factor taken into consideration. An example given by the New Republic shows the real figures behind the „greenest skyscraper in New York”, the Bank of America Tower built in 2010. At a time, it was hailed as a fully sustainable and the „greenest” building in America, but its actual users nowadays foot the electricity bill for twice as much power as that which is used up by the completely „non-green” Empire State Building. The biggest energy hogs? According to Sam Roudman, the author of the article in the New Republic, it’s the trading floor computers: „Assuming no one turns these computers off, in a year one of these desks uses roughly the energy it takes a 25-mile-per-gallon car engine to travel more than 4,500 miles.” It is an impressive figure – and nothing really out of the norm in the fast-paced world of business. All of the similar offices around the globe use a lot of power just to juice their trading terminals and networks.

This Cloud Is Dirty

And that’s just the tip of the Information Communication Technology ecosystem power use, which comes from the overall electricity consumption to support the Internet, individual users, trading terminals as well as server farms created to sustain the cloud. That already amounts to an astounding 10 percent of global electricity production, which is about enough to power 135 000 000 households for a whole year, or roughly the combined total electricity used by Germany and Japan. And it’s set to grow immensely in the future. But right now, this energy – roughly 1500 terawatt hours – is mostly used to cover the ever-growing computer clusters that make up the cloud and wireless networks, which in turn make it possible to use the cloud efficiently. The culprit, then, is the cloud itself.

Earlier in the year, in his Forbes’ column, Mills described the type of electricity that new ICT in the cloud era requires: „Electric utilities in America have entered a new era (…)  The future will not be dominated by finding ways to add more renewables to a grid, but by ways to add more resiliency and reliability„. And in case you were wondering, the cloud is, in fact, even more energy consuming than the aforementioned Bank of America Tower: „The average square foot of a [cloud] data center uses 100 to 200 times more electricity than does a square foot of a modern office building. Put another way, a tiny few thousand square foot data room uses more electricity than lighting up a 100,000-square-foot shopping mall.” Additional research shows that the growth and need for more electricity, one that comes from a more reliable source, lies with wireless access to the cloud services. By 2015, the estimated wireless use will reach 43 terawatt hours, compared to 9.2 terawatt hours consumed last year.

This Won’t Be Enough

The alarming thing here is not that we rely too much on fossil fuels to get that electricity, it’s that we need too much of it and continuously. According to the Breakthrough (an ecology awareness organization), it won’t matter if we do have all renewable and clean sources of energy at our disposal – it simply won’t be enough in the long run. And even Google, an adamant supporter of all things green, agrees with that sentiment: „The plain truth is that the electric grid, with its mix of renewable and fossil generation, is an extremely useful and important tool for a data center operator, and with current technologies, renewable energy alone is not sufficiently reliable to power a data center.” It seems that, for the time being, we’re stuck with coal, and the future will see us depend even more on it. Perhaps it’s time to switch off your computer and smartphone and let the grid rest for a while?

VOCABULARY
to be lulled into sth – zostać czymś ukołysanym, uspokojonym
sustainability – tu: równowaga ekologiczna
plethora – mnóstwo, ogrom
modern-day – współczesny
sound – solidny, godny zaufania
CEO (Chief Executive Officer) – dyrektor naczelny
investment consultancy – spółka zajmująca się doradztwem inwestycyjnym
to deal with – zajmować się, dotyczyć
cloud – tu: technologia „chmury”, zdalnego przetwarzania i przechowywania danych
coal – węgiel
to provide – dostarczać
astonishing – zadziwiający
disturbing – niepokojący
device – urządzenie
household appliance – urządzenie/artykuł AGD
data storage – przechowywanie danych
harmful – szkodliwy
jet – odrzutowiec
to commute – dojeżdżać do pracy
mining – górnictwo
grim – ponury, niewesoły
bottom – dół, najniższy szczebel
refrigerator – lodówka
to consider – rozważyć
on average – przeciętnie
broadband – szerokopasmowy
medium-sized – średniej wielkości
to stay-charge sth – zostawić coś na ładowaniu (komórkę, laptopa)
video streaming – strumieniowe odtwarzanie wideo (np. Youtube)
to turn out – okazać się
culprit – winowajca
within range – w zasięgu
wireless – bezprzewodowy
to ramp sth up – podwyższyć coś mocno
significant – znaczący
to compound – powiększyć, spotęgować
to boost – wzmocnić
human factor – czynnik ludzki
to take sth into consideration – brać coś pod uwagę, uwzględniać coś
figure – liczba, cyfra
skyscraper – drapacz chmur
to be hailed as sth – zostać czymś okrzykniętym, być szeroko zachwalanym jako
nowadays – obecnie
to foot the bill – spłacić/zapłacić rachunek
hog – ktoś, kto coś okupuje lub nadmiernie monopolizuje
trading floor – parkiet (giełdy)
assuming… – wychodząc z założenia, że…
to turn sth off – wyłączyć coś
roughly – z grubsza
miles per gallong (mpg) – mile na galon, jednostka wydajności silnika auta
engine – silnik
impressive – imponujący
fast-paced – szybko rozwijający się, prężnie działający
to juice sth – zasilić coś (pot.)
tip – czubek, wierzchołek
overall – ogólny, łączny
individual – pojedynczy
to amount to sth – stanowić, wynosić coś
household – gospodarstwo domowe
combined total – połączona suma, wspólna kwota
to be set to grow – mieć wzrosnąć, najpewniej wzrosnąć (w przyszłości)
immensely – ogromnie
ever-growing – stale wzrastający
cluster – skupisko, zgromadzenie (czegoś)
to make sth up – składać się na coś
in turn – z kolei
efficiently – wydajnie
utilities – media komunalne (woda, prąd, gaz)
renewable – tu: źródło energii odnawialnej
grid – sieć energetyczna
resiliency – wytrzymałość
reliability – pewność, solidność
to wonder – zastanawiać się
aforementioned – wyżej wspomniany
shopping mall – centrum handlowe
research – badanie, badania
estimated – szacowany
to reach – osiągnąć
compared to – w porównaniu do
to rely on sth – polegać na czymś
fossil fuel – paliwo kopalne
at sb’s disposal – w czyjejś gestii, do czyjejś dyspozycji
in the long run – na dłuższą metę
adamant – nieugięty, stanowczy
sentiment – pogląd, opinia
sufficiently – wystarczająco
to be stuck with sth – być na coś skazanym
to depend on sth – polegać na czymś, być zależnym od czegoś

-by Prochor Aniszczuk

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