The Web takes too much electricity.

The energy hunger of the Internet companies charged, and the environment, warns a British newspaper. But reliable information about the power of the network does not exist. Researchers suggest that the web simply to slow to save.

 

The power of the Internet is far too high, warns the British '
Guardian. "The newspaper reported that many online service providers with the cost of its rapidly growing energy to fight. Any query, the answer is, each image in a browser window appears, and every video that was on the computer plays consumed electricity, only is not so obvious.

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Real-time weather data is fed to a digital world: Does the Web will be more economical?

Jet, for example, you can see, as they contaminate the environment, you are loud, they stink and sometimes they also smoke. When the Internet is different. The computer with which you surf through the Web, are relatively small, should not unusual smell and do not consume vast amounts of electricity. In computing, the Internet with data vollpumpen to answer queries, images, texts and films to deliver, it is different.

These plants are big, loud and madcap must armdicke cable with power. But remember there is nothing, if you just Google for a statement for a foreign questioned, since data are invisible to the user, are in the gray office building basements or in the industrial areas on the outskirts of cities. And yet it is precisely these data, the Internet alive, the enormous amount of energy.

How much energy this is about, there are no reliable figures, only estimates. In one respect, however, the figures are always similar: There is a lot of energy consumed by the Internet, very much.

Queries 12,000 kilometers per hour

So consumed in a single Web Google a quantity of electricity, whose production at 200 milligrams grams of CO2 are released, reported the New Scientist. " The first is not much. But the Internet is still just the old rule that it is the mass of the rash there. Taken together, namely, generate 1000 Google queries as much CO2 as a car ride to one kilometers ausstößt.

Theory is not huge, until you think about is how many queries the Google deal should be. Solo in March 2009, according to the
ComScore in the United States more than nine billion searches have been. Converted to CO2 emissions of a car, the one hour journey of 12,000 kilometers - and this is quite a considerable distance, a remarkable energy.

How significant is the fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated as 2006. Even then, the U.S. consumed 61 billion computing kilowatt hours of electricity, enough energy to the UK for two months supply. But that was three years ago. Estimated that the Internet is growing year by year by ten percent.

Meanwhile, as the "New Scientist", it has a population of 1.5 billion web. Due to this development, it is estimated, amounted to the energy needs of the Internet data centers to around 152 billion kilowatt hours. On the commercial question and answer portal
UClue expects David Sarokin even before, the world's energy, including the Internet connected computers, cooling systems and network hardware may be already at 867 billion kilowatt-hours total.

How much are YouTube videos?

Whether it's soundsoviel or soundsoviel billion kilowatt-hours are: it's a lot of electricity, the Internet consumes. And that makes the providers of online services more and more worried. Subodh Bapat, vice president of server manufacturer Sun Microsystems, warns about the "Guardian" that we need the energy of the Internet for economic reasons embank. Finally, the rapidly rising energy costs due to the financial crisis, falling profits are facing.

How high those costs can be like the example to illustrate YouTube. Exact figures on how much you look at the operation of the free video portal can be costly, Google puts its owners are not published, but estimates there are already. Sun expects about Credit Suisse expects the delivery of bandwidth-eating YouTube annually more than 350 million euros.

Floating eco-computing

No wonder then that more and more companies seek to energy their data centers to minimize. IBM wants some CO2-neutral, by the waste heat from the computer used for residential and office buildings to heat. Google has already been invested in climate-friendly technology, already has plans for floating data centers submitted their computer from the seawater cooled generators and the movements of the waves for power generation use.

But still there are such eco-computing only on paper. One way how the Internet could reduce energy demand faster, believe researchers at the University of Berkeley in cooperation with experts from Intel and Microsoft have found. You want the flow of data through the Internet simply ausbremsen, even if only a little.

By smoothing the data, the delivery of individual packets, for example, a few milliseconds delay, they want to save up to 50 percent, because the network hardware during periods of lower load down a corridor, then less power consumed.

A part of our daily consumption

Alternatively, one could also summarize the data, send concentrated, the researchers suggest. In this way, the network devices were fully utilized temporarily, could be after work in an energy-saving sleep. In simulations, the researchers with their "Load Skewing" techniques mentioned savings from 40 to 80 percent.

Still, however, the rising power of the Internet by all parties as threatening. Google's vice-president of operations, Urs Hölzle, is concern about the ecological importance of the energy of the Internet completely covered. In his view, Internet usage, as well as TV and driving, a part of our daily consumption. Hölzle: "Yes, this energy is consumed, but in the big picture view that is no problem."

Finally, it Hölzle would already one kilometers drive the energy a Google inquiry far beyond it. So of course you can also see.