[governance] FW: Toward Reducing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the Internet and Telecommunications

[Ian Peter]

has been discussed in the past - and people like Bill St Arnaud have done 
excellent work in this area.

But to put things simply - server farms should be relocated near renewable 
energy resources (in fact their is no technical reason  not to relocate all 
large server farms to say Iceland to take advantage of their thermo 
resources). The good thing here is that there is good cost justification as 
well - for all large (including corporate) server farms energy costs are 
substantial, and there are immediate and substantial cost savings from 
relocation.

But we are rather good at inertia...



-----Original Message----- 
From: michael gurstein
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 7:18 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: [governance] FW: Toward Reducing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of 
the Internet and Telecommunications

According to recent calculations the Internet is the source of some 2% of 
global greenhouse gas emissions (and increasing quickly). Much of this comes 
from the vast server farms that major Internet corporations (eg. Google, 
Amazon etc.) have been establishing around the world. 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130102140452.htm

Perhaps a topic for discussion at the next IGF?

M

-----Original Message-----
From: davidicus [mailto:bigbluearth at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2013 11:09 PM
To: ciresearchers
Cc: michael gurstein
Subject: Toward Reducing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the Internet and 
Telecommunications

This story in Science Daily may be of interest to some CI Colleagues.
~d

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toward Reducing the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of the Internet and 
Telecommunications

Jan. 2, 2013 — Amid growing concern over the surprisingly large amount of 
greenhouse gas produced by the Internet and other telecommunications 
activities, researchers are reporting new models of emissions and energy 
consumption that could help reduce their carbon footprint.

Their report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications
(CEET) and Bell Labs explain that the information communications and 
technology (ICT) industry, which delivers Internet, video, voice and other 
cloud services, produces more than 830 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), 
the main greenhouse gas, annually. That's about 2 percent of global CO2 
emissions -- the same proportion as the aviation industry produces. 
Projections suggest that ICT sector's share is expected to double by 2020. 
The team notes that controlling those emissions requires more accurate but 
still feasible models, which take into account the data traffic, energy use 
and CO2 production in networks and other elements of the ICT industry. 
Existing assessment models are inaccurate, so they set out to develop new 
approaches that better account for variations in equipment and other factors 
in the ICT industry.

They describe development and testing of two new models that better estimate 
the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of Internet and telecommunications 
services. They tested the models on a simulated network and on a deployed 
network that serves the majority of schools in California. Both models 
delivered better estimates than the current "top-down" models. The 
researchers suggest, based on their models, that more efficient power usage 
of facilities, more efficient use of energy-efficient equipment and 
renewable energy sources are three keys to reducing ICT emissions of CO2.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Chemical 
Society.

Journal Reference:
Chien A. Chan, André F. Gygax, Elaine Wong, Christopher A. Leckie, 
Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, Daniel C. Kilper. Methodologies for Assessing 
the Use-Phase Power Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of 
Telecommunications Network Services. Environmental Science & Technology, 
2013; 47 (1): 485 DOI: 10.1021/es303384y

Web address: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130102140452.htm

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those 
of ScienceDaily or its staff.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


================================
D a v i d    S a d o w a y   BES, MRM
PhD Candidate
Department of Urban Planning & Design
The University of Hong Kong
Email:  one1earth at hku.hk
(852)2859.2721
--------------------------------------------------------
Visiting Associate
Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies
Academia Sinica (Taipei, Taiwan)
Email: bigbluearth at gmail.com
(886)2929.2948
================================








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