The cost of being on-line

[Martin Naef]

On 24.06.2011 07:31, Peter Korsten wrote:
> Since there are quite a few environmentally conscious people on this
> list, who also use the modern internet-based tools at our disposal, the
> following link is food for thought:

It is slightly ironic that this information is spread by means of 
streamed, digital video - which is exactly the sample they used to make 
a point... ;-)

But joking aside, this is a very real and serious issue. I've recently 
overheard that IT infrastructure today is responsible for about 10% of 
the electricity usage. If this figure is correct - and I wouldn't be 
surprised - this is quite impressive. I've just recently learned that 
the latest upgrade at the Swiss Supercomputing Center in Manno wasn't 
limited by how much hardware they could afford, but by the yearly cost 
of electricity...

With the trend going towards light-weight mobile devices that are 
incredibly power-efficient, it so easy to forget the big fat data 
centers required to actually run them.

Martin