This Solar-Powered, 'Low Tech' Website Goes Offline When It's Cloudy (vice.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Every website and product connected to the internet would not be able to exist without a vast network of wireless routers, fiber optic cables running underground and underwater, and data centers that house the servers which bring the internet to life. Data centers in the U.S. alone eat up 70 billion kilowatts of energy per year, according to a 2016 estimate from the Department of Energy -- that's 1.8 percent of all energy use across the country.

The internet is not ethereal, and a new project from the blog Low-Tech Magazine aims to make that issue more tangible. Low-Tech Magazine -- a blog operated by Kris De Decker that has run on Wordpress since 2007 -- launched a "Low-Tech," solar version of the site that's designed from the ground-up to use as little energy as possible. (Check out the solar version of the site here.) In a Skype call with Motherboard, De Decker said that he doesn't think people don't care about how much energy it takes they use the internet, they just don't understand the extent of the problem. "There's this idea that the internet is immaterial, it's somewhere floating in clouds," he said. "Of course, it's a very material thing that uses resources, materials, energy -- and quite a lot actually."

Comments

Energy versus Power

[necro81]

Data centers in the U.S. alone eat up 70 billion kilowatts of energy per year, according to a 2016 estimate from the Department of Energy -- that's 1.8 percent of all energy use across the country

Goddammit! I see this conflation of energy in power in the mainstream press all the feakin' time. Kilowatts is not a unit of energy! It's a unit of power (energy consumption over time). If a reporter doesn't know the difference, and doesn't realize that the different is really important, then I can't trust that any of the rest of their reporting is worth my time.

However, since they couldn't be bothered to do even a modicum of technical checking, I will help fill in the blanks. There are two ways to interpret this statement:

1. They are actually talking about power, in which case "energy per year" is not logical

   Data centers in the U.S. alone eat up 70 billion kilowatts of power, according to a 2016 estimate from the Department of Energy -- that's 1.8 percent of all power use across the country

2. or, they are actually talking about energy, in which case the unit should be kilowatt-hours

   Data centers in the U.S. alone eat up 70 billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year, according to a 2016 estimate from the Department of Energy -- that's 1.8 percent of all energy use across the country

In the first case, they would be talking about 70 terawatts of power, and that being 1.8% of the US consumption. This is absurd: the average energy consumption of the U.S. is only a few terawatts.

In the second case, they would be talking about 70 terawatt-hours of energy, implying a total consumption in the U.S.of about 3888 TWh. This is in line with recent statistics for U.S. electricity consumption. However, electricity consumption is not the same as total energy consumption, where one also has to consider energy for heating, transportation, industrial processes, etc.

So, the reporter is talking about energy, not power. He or she doesn't know the correct units, and conflates electrical consumption with total energy consumption. In short, the reporter is sloppy as all get out with their information. No wonder we can't have a proper debate about energy in this country - no one knows what the hell they're talking about.