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But behind the scenes, our data comes at a cost, says Dr Karl.</p><p class="byline">By <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/profiles/content/s2193276.htm?site=science">Karl S. Kruszelnicki</a></p> <div class="right"> <div id="storyRelatedMedia"> <div id="storyPhotos" class="photo imgBox"><a id="storyPhotosLink" href="https://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201605/r1571072_23650606.jpg"><img id="storyPhotosImg" src="https://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201605/r1571072_23650606.jpg" alt="Data centre" class="featureImg"></a><p id="storyPhotosCaption" class="caption">Behind the cloud is a bank of computers <em>(Source: Erik Isakson/Getty images)</em></p> </div><script type="text/javascript"></script></div> <div id="related"> <h3>Related Stories</h3> <ul> <li class="expandable"><a href="https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/science/podcast/gmis/gmis20160531.mp3" onclick="if (typeof showAudio == 'function') return showAudio('4470866-mediarss.xml', this, '100%', true, '1571051');" class="audio"><strong>Audio: </strong>How clean and green is our digital world? <span class="source">(Science Online Audio)</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <p><strong>Today's technology looks so slick and clean as it brings magic to your screen. But behind the scenes, our data comes at a cost, says Dr Karl.</strong></p> <p>Your new smartphone, or tablet, or computer looks so shiny and clean. And surely telecommuting, or working from home, must be cleaner in terms of 'big picture energy consumption'. After all, you're not burning energy by travelling to an office — you're sitting at home, not shifting atoms from here to there, just shifting electronic bits. </p> <p>Come on, being digital means we must be changing to a cleaner and greener economy?</p> <p>Well, it all depends on how we run our new internet-enabled world. Unfortunately so far, we've had a pretty dirty start.</p> <p>For example, just to manufacture one desktop computer takes about a quarter-tonne of fossil fuel and one-and-a-half tonnes of water. </p> <p>But the days are long gone when computers were stand-alone devices — today, they're all connected. </p> <p>The internet will probably be the biggest thing we humans will build, at least for the near future. Following current trends, by 2020, 80 per cent of all people will be connected to the net, and there will be some 7.6 billion mobile broadband subscriptions.</p> <p class="right top"><a href="#top"><span>^ to top</span></a></p> <h3 id="a">A cloud of energy</h3> <p>Fundamental to the expansion of the internet is the so-called 'cloud'. This mysterious cloud is remote data or services that we access via the net. It's increasingly where we store our photos, manage our health, do our work, embark on human relationships, go shopping online, book flights and accommodation, send emails and watch movies. But each time you use your smartphone, you are accessing some hundred-or-so other computers around the world. </p> <p>The 'cloud' data is stored in data centres — actual physical buildings. They are built in areas that are stable — no civil unrest, or earthquakes, floods and the like. But more importantly, data centres need high-speed optic fibre communication (which is relatively cheap), and electricity (which is not). </p> <p>And so, in the USA, data centres have sprung up in North Carolina and Washington, which had surplus electricity capacity, thanks to the collapse of energy-hungry textile and aluminium industries. So that's where companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook have set up their data centres — in huge noisy buildings full of computer processors, costing $1US billion, and chewing up power at the rate of 100 megawatts.</p> <p>Incredibly, the energy used by the cloud is about 2 per cent of the world's energy. If the cloud were a country, it would be sixth in the world in terms of energy consumption — after the USA, China, Russia, India and Japan, but ahead of Germany and Brazil. </p> <p>By itself, Google uses more power than the country of Turkey. This energy consumption is increasing at 12 per cent per year. </p> <p>In 2011, India had some 300,000 mobile phone towers — 40 per cent of them in areas without reliable grid-supplied electricity. So the power for these towers came from diesel generators. These towers used 2 billion litres of diesel each year to provide the electricity. That made them the second biggest user of diesel fuel, after the Indian railway system. These towers accounted for 2 per cent of India's total greenhouse emissions. </p> <p>In the USA, in Silicon Valley, Microsoft's data centre has backup diesel-powered electrical generators. Microsoft was one of the largest stationary diesel polluters in the whole region.</p> <p class="right top"><a href="#top"><span>^ to top</span></a></p> <h3 id="b">Water and raw resources</h3> <p>If that's not bad enough, here's another environmental factor — water usage, to a level that competes with both agriculture and humans. In Utah, the NSA's new data centre uses 6,400 tonnes of water each day for cooling.</p> <p></p> <p>What about raw materials? The tin that comes from Indonesia has been collected by a process, that has wrought havoc on humans, animal and plants. Cobalt from the Congo comes via a process akin to slave labour.</p> <p>Plus you end up with electronic waste, or ewaste. Most ewaste is exported to Asia where the valuable raw materials are recycled (which is good), but using hazardous techniques (which is bad). Well, in Silicon Valley in the USA, there are about two dozen very heavily polluted superfund sites, full of extremely hazardous ewaste.</p> <p>I love the access to information, and ease of communication, that our high-technology society can give us. But high-tech grew up so quickly that in many cases, it grew in a messy and dirty way. </p> <p>Some of the big high-tech companies are specifically going out of their way to become clean and green, some are paying lip service (that is, talking the talk, but not walking the walk), and others are deliberately trying to stay cheap and dirty. But the 'cheap' is an illusion — it's cheap only for the company. The rest of society has to pay for the clean up and the health costs.</p> <p>High technology is here to stay. And it does look so slick and clean, as it brings magic to your screen. But let's make it green behind the scenes — and give that cloud a silver lining.</p> <p class="tags"><strong>Tags: </strong><a href="/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=environment">environment</a>, <a href="/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=information-and-communication">information-and-communication</a>, <a href="/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=internet">internet</a>, <a href="/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=computers-and-technology">computers-and-technology</a>, <a href="/science/tag/browse.htm?site=science&topic=latest&tag=internet">internet</a></p> <p class="right top"><a href="#top"><span>^ to top</span></a></p> <p class="date">Published 31 May 2016</p> <p><small><strong>© 2024 Karl S. 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How clean and green is our digital world? › Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science (ABC Science)