The Internet Cloud has a Dirty Secret

Stephen Schneiter

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  • Nov 26, 2018
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    Here is an interesting article that was shared by James Stanger about the amount of energy that is consumed by data centers. It is interesting that the more we move to the cloud, the more energy will be consumed. The article does mention efforts by Amazon and Google to use alternative energy for their data centers, but still a lot of work needs to be done. All our Google searches and streaming videos from Netflix and other sources is leaving a big carbon footprint.

    Good conversation starter to have with your students.https://fortune.com/2019/09/18/internet-cloud-server-data-center-energy-consumption-renewable-coal
     
    Thank you, @Lee McWhorter , for the appropriate reaction!

    On a serious note, while these huge data centers are consuming massive amounts of power, how much power consumption is consequently being shifted away from the end user locations? If an enterprise stops using local servers--or at least scales back the on premise cluster(s)--then the power consumption goes down. It's a bit like the argument (used both for and against) over electric cars. Sure, they don't emit carbon dioxide and pollutants, but the power plants do.