Internet increases the amount of carbon

Friday evening. Come to the Internet, browse a few pages, read mail, order a pizza. And one step closer to the death of the Earth, wrote The Vancouver Sun. Depending on what sites you visit and how long to linger on the pages released into the atmosphere from 1 to 10 grams of carbon that contributes to global warming. Of course, it's not much, but, for example, a Google search is used daily by more than one billion people. Add to that at least 60 million status updates on Facebook and 250 billion emails, and you will understand what you are doing serious thawed patches in the glaciers of Greenland. We save on paper, making the newsletter by e-mail. We are working remotely, without spending time on the road. We arrange teleconferences instead of flying to another city. Meanwhile, the Internet has become one of the main sources of carbon. In addition, Global Network currently consumes 2% - 3% of the world's electricity. If the Internet were a country, it would be the fifth largest consumer of the world, ahead of India and Germany. Moreover, its energy demand by 2020 will almost double. Most of the energy consumed by the fast-growing network of data centers that form the backbone of the Internet. They are the size of the room with five supermarkets, cluttered from floor to ceiling with tens of thousands kompyuterov.

For example, you search for Drives a phrase in Google. Your request is sent to the data center, forcing thousands of servers to operate. The machine scans billions of Web pages in the archives, and then give you an answer. On average, it takes 0, 2 seconds. However, Google is working centers not only on request, but they themselves are constantly scouring the Internet for the update files. All these computers consume huge amounts of electricity, the principal amount of which is spent on cooling equipment. This year, Apple plans to open a data center in North Carolina. It takes 46 thousand sq. M. meters. The question price - $ 1 billion. The center will consume about 100 MW of energy - as much as consumes about 100 thousand. Canadian homes. This Megacenter Apple is the only part of such gigantstkih projects that will be built in North Carolina alone. IT-industry is now starting to improve the energy efficiency of their data centers. But this is not enough, said IT-engineer from Ottawa, Bill St. Arnaud. Internet is growing so fast that surpasses the company undertakes measures to reduce energy consumption. According to him, the real solution - is the adoption of measures such as carbon taxes. "The planet is warming up, and that's too bad. We need to introduce a carbon tax. This is the only way, "- he concluded.

Source: mirfactov.com/