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Internet's Energy Needs Growing Faster Than Efficiency Gains

Posted by timothy on from the more-dilithium-obviously dept.

Electrons may not weigh anything, but it takes some heavy lifting, both literal and figurative, to point them in the right direction. Reader terrancem writes with this excerpt: "Energy efficiency gains are failing to keep pace with the Internet's rapid rate of expansion, says a new paper published in the journal Science. Noting that the world's data centers already consume 270 terawatt hours and Internet traffic volume is doubling every three years, Diego Reforgiato Recupero of the University of Catania argues for prioritizing energy efficiency in the design of devices, networks, data centers, and software development. Recupero highlights two approaches for improving efficiency: smart standby and dynamic frequency scaling or CPU throttling."

4 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Electrons may not weigh anything

    You lost me there.

  2. 270 terrawatt hours by Zcar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In how long?

    Could be 30 gigawatts for a year, 300 megawatts for a decade, 370 gigawatts for a month or even 16.2 petawatts in a minute.

    Units matter!

    1. Re:270 terrawatt hours by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which of course, raises the question, why couldn't you just bloody SAY "31 Gigawatts" instead of tangling yourself in this foofaral of extraneous time units that you didn't even get right?

  3. Re: Electrons may not weigh anything by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, the mass of an electron is: 9.10938291(40)×10^31 kg :-)

    I think you might have missed a minus sign there. Unless the Sun is an electron.