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The Internet Power

The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think (nytimes.com) 53

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
New research by two leading scientists says some dire warnings of environmental damage from technology are overstated. From a report: The giant tech companies with their power-hungry, football-field-size data centers are not the environmental villains they are sometimes portrayed to be on social media and elsewhere. Shutting off your Zoom camera or throttling your Netflix service to lower-definition viewing does not yield a big saving in energy use, contrary to what some people have claimed. Even the predicted environmental impact of Bitcoin, which does require lots of computing firepower, has been considerably exaggerated by some researchers.

Those are the conclusions of a new analysis by Jonathan Koomey and Eric Masanet, two leading scientists in the field of technology, energy use and the environment. Both are former researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Mr. Koomey is now an independent analyst, and Mr. Masanet is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (Mr. Masanet receives research funding from Amazon.) They said their analysis, published earlier this month as a commentary article in Joule, a scientific journal, was not necessarily intended to be reassuring. Instead, they said, it is meant to inject a dose of reality into the public discussion of technology's impact on the environment. The surge in digital activity spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic, the scientists said, has fueled the debate and prompted dire warnings of environmental damage. They are concerned that wayward claims, often amplified by social media, could shape behavior and policy.
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The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think More

The Internet Eats Up Less Energy Than You Might Think

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  • Except for Bitcoin... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bitcoin and other crypto mining singlehandedly raising sea levels just to guess arbitrary numbers used for an elaborate gambling scheme.

    Here is a number for your: Go fuck yourself.

  • The problem with bitcoin (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:48PM (#61530518)

    Even the predicted environmental impact of Bitcoin, which does require lots of computing firepower

    The problem with bitcoin isn't that it's the single biggest polluter in the world, its that its a pointless waste of energy and its wasteful by design.

    • Televised sports is a bigger waste of energy than Bitcoin.

      See how that works? Anything I like is valuable, anything you like is a waste of energy.

      • Televised sports still provide something unique. While Bitcoin has several advantages, such as a shared ledger. This can even be applied to & used with traditional currency. The mining is what I feel is unnecessary.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BranMan ( 29917 )

          And... you would be wrong. It is not unnecessary - it is essential. The mining operations is also what get you your transactions. No mining, no transactions, no ledger.

          • No. You are absolutely wrong. The crypto ledger is already being used separately in many applications through out the world. NFT is one.

    • Hordes of tech companies, tech journalists, tech researchers and scientists want to not have a Global Warming type of argument against more technology.

      That is the current 'news' push against technology usage of electricity.

      Big oil and big coal get hammered now by Global Warming arguments.

      Big tech does not want that same public shaming.

    • Only for certain values of "single...polluter". The value you have selected is akin to "industry", and the pollutants are green house gases. Also, Blockchain is not "wasteful by design". Waste is required by its design, not desired. A source for your post is required here, not desired, so here's one: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio... [epa.gov] Do you consider the EPA a compromised, non-credible source for green house gas-related data?

  • Not too surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Agent.Nihilist ( 1228864 ) on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:53PM (#61530544)

    I've always been really suspect of the "power an internet action takes" figures. It's always felt like they overestimated server power usages, or more specifically underestimated the number of users one could serve for the power used.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Historically data suggests that âthe internetâ(TM), perhaps defined as a box owned by Moss, combined with other innovations, has a negative growth effect on energy usage. After WWII, energy use in the US skyrocketed. Just in the decade prior to the US oil crisis and Carterâ(TM)s call to conserve energy, the US energy usage per household doubled in a pretty linear fashion. For the following 25 to 30 years, electricity rose but in a much less continuous fashion as we e perimeter with new techno

  • More likely... (Score:5, Funny)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:55PM (#61530560)

    ...Americans empty fridges left running in the garage & the air-conditioning/heating on all day in empty, poorly insulated houses.

    "Hey Hun! It's getting too cold. I'll turn the air-conditioning down."

    "That's OK Poopsie! I've already opened the windows. It'll be fine in a couple of minutes."

  • Consider The Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Monday June 28, 2021 @01:59PM (#61530588) Journal
    The options aren't a Zoom meeting or no Zoom meeting. The options are a Zoom meeting or traveling to meet in person. A powerful computer consumes 500 Watts, where a car easily consumes 100 times as much power.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by greytree ( 7124971 )

      You are probably correct, but those are nonsense figures.
      The computer is on during the whole meeting, the car during travelling only.
      You need to provide Watt hours for the whole meeting, not Watts during an unspecified period.

      • Except the car doesn't require any power during the meeting. Checkmate. /sarcasm

        • Except the car doesn't require any power during the meeting.

          Actual mileage may vary with options, driving conditions, driving habits, and vehicle's condition.

        • I wrote: "The computer is on during the whole meeting, the car during travelling only."

          You replied: "Except the car doesn't require any power during the meeting"

          DontBeAMoran

      • Re:Consider The Alternative (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Monday June 28, 2021 @04:02PM (#61531090)

        Let's assume you drive 20 miles round trip in a 25mpg car to go to a four hour meeting. GNU "units" program tells us:

        You have: 20 mile / 25 mpg * gasoline / 4 hour
        You want: W
                * 7326.7768

        That *averages* 7.3kW thermal energy for the whole meeting. Let's say that's equivalent to about 3.5kW of electricity due to the thermodynamic losses associated with electricity generation.

        My computer and monitor currently use about 60W combined when not heavily loaded. I highly doubt that either Zoom or the ISPs are using anywhere near 3440W to transmit just my video feed.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suutar ( 1860506 )

      Agreed, the sun is a huge waste. We need to surround it with solar panels. I think some dude named Dyson had some plans for that...

  • Shutting off your Zoom camera or throttling your Netflix service to lower-definition viewing does not yield a big saving in energy use, contrary to what some people have claimed.

    Who was saying that throttling your video quality is going to result in a substantial overall energy savings?

    • Shutting off your Zoom camera or throttling your Netflix service to lower-definition viewing does not yield a big saving in energy use, contrary to what some people have claimed.

      Who was saying that throttling your video quality is going to result in a substantial overall energy savings?

      Technically, it uses less cpu to render a 360p video than it does to render a 4k video, but compared to my 45 minute commute in my 94 Mustang GT w/ a Cobra motor, its nothing,

      • I forgot to state that I was comparing video meetings to driving into work 5 days/week. my mistake.

      • Clearly. But I'm curious who claimed (or maybe just implied?) that this energy savings was substantial for anything other than the battery of your laptop. (The article says people have claimed this. I'm wondering who.)

        • It's also a substantial difference in bandwidth used and so also an energy savings for the wireless hardware.

          • sigh Yes, that's very clever. But you're [purposely or otherwise] missing the point of my question.

            • Going by the number of pixels alone:
              480p = 720x480 pixels = 345600 pixels per frame.
              1080p = 1920x1080 pixels = 2073600 pixels per frame, 6 times as many pixels as 480p.
              4K = 3840x2160 pixels = 8294400 pixels per frame, 4 times as many pixels as 1080p or 24 times as many pixels as 480p.

              Changing CODEC would probably change the power requirements to playback video, especially if the playback device doesn't have hardware acceleration, but it won't change the number of total pixels per frame to decode. And the ba

              • I'm not claiming that it doesn't save energy. Obviously it does.
                I'm asking: who is the fool that claimed it saves a substantial amount of energy (as in comparison to driving a car, for example)?

                But I guess I shouldn't expect people to pay attention to what I actually say here on Slashdot.

  • Before i even start reading the article proper two things jump at me. " two leading scientists in the field of technology," That's awfully vague. Like saying "a couple doctors in... huh... doctoring stuff". And "(Mr. Masanet receives research funding from Amazon.) " so... it would be in his best interest to say big tech companies are not that bad. I'll still read it but... not good for the credibility.

    • And if the results are something along the lines of "Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu bad, Amazon Prime Video good", stop reading immediately.

  • Back of the envelope calculation with numbers pulled from some quick Google searches: the Internet will consume around 270 TWh [iea.org] energy in 2022. There are around 4.7 Bn Internet users. The energy consumption per user is then around 57 kWh/year.

    If I had to go rent a DVD or blueray, I have to drive a round trip of around 24 km. If I drove electric, that would on average require 0.18 kWh/km [thedriven.io], meaning each rental would be around 4.3 kWh. If I did one trip per month, that would be around 51 kWh energy consumed, me

  • It's identified as "commentary," which leaves me skeptical. "Commentary articles may not be subject to peer review, at the discretion of the editorial team," per https://www.cell.com/joule/art... [cell.com] I'd take the peer-reviewed proper articles on the subject any day, especially once you add in the obvious conflict of interest. I'm not saying driving to work or the theater is better for the environment; obviously not. But the precise measurement based on scientific methods should be peer-reviewed (and unmistakabl

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