The Looming Internet Energy Crisis
If you think the virtual, online world helps reduce energy consumption in the real world (a topic we’ve touched on before here at Green Options Media), think again: a new study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company provides scary insights into how Internet computing is devouring more and more power and spewing out more and more greenhouse gases.
Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.
The study also reports that, worldwide, data centers are now responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions than the countries of Argentina and the Netherlands combined. If current trends continue, data centers around the globe will produce more carbon dioxide than all the world’s airlines by 2020.
In California alone, the utility company Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) reports that its service region (including Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area) has seen data center energy demands skyrocket from 50 to 75 megawatts a mere 18 months ago to 400 to 500 megawatts today.
The Internet energy drain is growing so rapidly that, of 311 data center managers in the U.S. recently surveyed by the Uptime Institute, 42 percent don’t expect to have enough electricity to run their operations in the next two years.
What’s the problem? Standard computing and data center operations, it turns out, have been grossly inefficient. Your typical personal computer operates at just 6 percent efficiency, while data centers manage an efficiency rate of 56 percent. To quote New York Times tech writer Steve Lohr, “In other words, if data centers were hotels, they would be bankrupt and shut down instead of growing like kudzu.”
While that’s the bad news, the good news is that, with a serious emphasis on energy conservation and improved efficiency, data centers could do much better than they now do. In fact, PG&E recently met with IT folks from 19 North American data centers to discuss rebates and other incentives that could help cut energy consumption. Other utilities — including Seattle City Light — are exploring similar measures.
Even the federal government is getting into the act, with the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program, a joint effort of the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Energy. The program offers fact sheets, tools, links and more to help data center operators become more energy efficient.
Here’s hoping the efficiency efforts start making some serious dents in consumption soon: a global Internet energy crash is one more crisis we don’t need.
