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

Why turn it on at all?

[dlleigh]

Wouldn't leaving it off truly use as little energy as possible?

This can be very real...

[Strider-]

So I work with a non-profit that is off the grid. As with any organization in the modern era, we have become extremely dependent on IT systems to conduct our day to day business. For our system, which is a campus network spread out over about 20 buildings, the electrical load is approximately 3.5 kilowatts or so. The trouble is that we're off grid, with our own private hydro-electric power plant. In the winter months, the output of our plant can drop as low as 30 to 40kw, meaning that the IT infrastructure is consuming upwards of 10% of the total output of our electrical system.

Now, we look at that power as an investment of sorts, as it allows us to use some pretty sophisticated load management systems to better make use of our limited resources. We've also put the gear into spaces that need to be kept from freezing in the winter, so the waste heat contributes to that, rather than running heaters.

But yes, the internet isn't free (electrically).