The Internet’s Energy Consumption and Its Carbon Footprint

Over the past few years there has been an ongoing debate about the growing amount of energy needed to power the World Wide Web, a.k.a the Internet, and the impacts on our environment.  Many have tried to pin down the exact amount of energy needed to power the internet and its carbon footprint. Recently The Guardian published an article saying that the Internet’s carbon footprint was around 300 million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to every person in the UK flying to America and back twice over.

The article was published in August and with the number of internet users growing by the day worldwide I wouldn’t be surprised if these figures were higher nowadays.  According to the UN by the end of the year there will be 2 billion world internet users, that is 1/6 of world population.

Hypothetically, if these growth rates remain the same, the entire world would be online by 2020.

To measure the Internet’s exact power consumption and then determine its carbon footprint we would need to know the precise number of computers, laptops and mobile phones that are online these days (which we don’t). Add that to the amount of energy consumed by all the Data Centres worldwide to then determine the internet power consumption and its carbon footprint.

Scary isn’t it? But we gathered some data just to give you a better understanding of roughly how much energy is needed to power the World Wide Web these days.

Back in 2006, data centres in America consumed a total of 61,000,000,000 kWh (yes you read it right 61 trillion kWh), which is enough to power the UK for 2 whole months.

A single Google search produces 0.2g of CO2. Not that much right? But now, 3,100,000 Google searches emit enough CO2 to power an average house for a whole month.

The monthly searches processed by Google produce 260 tons of CO2 which is equivalent to power an American fridge-freezer for 5,400 years. This consumes 3,900,000 kWh of energy, which is equal to washing 5.57 million loads of laundry.

But wait, it gets worse! A single spam message produces the equivalent of 0.3 grams of CO2. Multiply that by 62 trillion pieces of spam circling the World Wide Web each year and we have the emissions equivalent of driving around the Earth 1.6 million times.

Despite its huge energy consumption the internet is likely to play an important role as we move towards a low carbon economy. Thanks to advances in communication technologies an estimated 40% of the working population could work from home. If 40% of American workforce worked from home twice a week, carbon emission would be reduced by 53 million metric tons year, equivalent of taking 10 million cars on the road.

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UK Business Gas Prices Drop despite Forecasted Cold Spell

British gas prices have dropped on Monday despite the forecasted cold weather, opposite to what happened at the beginning of the month when the first cold spell hit Britain and rocketed UK gas prices.

Backed by a strong supply from Norway and Netherlands plus LNG imports helped keep UK gas prices at lower levels. Gas for delivery today was traded at 61.70 pence per therm at 0918 GMT (Monday), down 0.10 from the previous session, and the balance-of-the-week price fell 0.65 pence to 61.75 pence.

Norwegian and Dutch imports more than 90 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to the British market, helping meet above-average demand levels. According to National Grid data gas demand is 10% higher than usual for this season.

“It is looking like being very cold again on Saturday but that has been pretty well forecast and planned for,” one British gas trader said.

Strong supply margin forecasts and a high number of LNG tankers expected to arrive in the due course of December also made January gas prices drop 30p to 58.95 pence ($9.31 per mmBtu). But gas and energy brokers are still not very confident about long term gas prices as storage supply could drop later in the winter.

Rough stock levels – Britain’s largest storage site – were 30% lower than a year ago. This could push gas prices up towards the end of the winter.

As expected for this time of the year, energy prices went up slightly as demand increased, despite the prospect of EDF’s Hartlepool 2 nuclear reactor being reconnected to the Grid over the weekend.

Power for day-ahead was traded at 57.00 pounds per megawatt-hour (MWh, registering a 1 pound increase. While power for delivery in January traded at 52.70 pounds per MWh, up 0.60 pounds from Friday’s session.

“I think winter contracts are fundamentally bearish, but no one is brave enough to sell it with gas volatility,” said one energy broker.

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Wind Farms To Spring Up All Over Britain

Wind Power a low cost green technology for the future -  It is becoming ever so clear that the Government is planning in relying mostly on wind power to achieve its climate change bills commitment. By 2020, 15% of all energy generated in Britain must come from renewables.   As the windiest place in Europe it is only logical that we rely on this type of renewable energy resource.

The Government is subsidising a handful of projects that are working on making eolic energy generation more efficient. Two of these projects have caught our attention – Floating Wind Farms and the new generation of giant wind turbines.

Floating wind farms have been discussed for quite a while now and the progress in research made by companies like Statoil are making a viable business opportunity for the near future.

The technology basically copies the principles from floating oil rigs and it will allow wind turbines to be sited in waters as deep as 300m.  At the moment wind farms are usually sited at depths of up to 30m before it becomes difficult to build a standing structure.

These floating wind farms could also solve the complaint problems of many communities that are against onshore and offshore wind farms which are close to the shore and are blamed for ruining views.

But that problem won’t be solved anytime soon as a new generation of giant wind turbines taller than anything which has been built so far in the UK are planned for Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that two companies lodged plans to built wind farms with turbines of 493ft high. For reference these turbines will be three times taller than Nelson’s Column and two-thirds the height of Canary Wharf Tower.

According to the Sunday Telegraph that is only the tip of the iceberg as there is a total of 20 projects for these giant wind turbines.

As expected communities where the turbines will be built fear they are far too big and will blight the British landscape. Some claim that if it wasn’t for consumer subsidies made available by the Government these turbines would not be economically viable. Others go as far as saying that these turbines will be built in places where there is not much wind.

A spokeswoman for RenewableUK, the trade body for the renewable energy industry, said: “The increase in size is actually improving the economic benefits of wind energy since greater yields can be achieved, while maintaining the low environmental impact of smaller sized turbines.”

And added:

“Those seeking to block wind farm developments on the grounds of aesthetics are actually preventing the flow of thousands of pounds of investment into their local communities.”

Whether wind farms are built onshore or offshore and if they reach sky high heights or not don’t really matter to me as long as they prove to be efficient. So the Government and its regulatory bodies must be very strict when approving subsidies to renewable energy generation projects.

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Our monthly analysis of the UK gas and power markets is now available on line for the month of December 2010. The service is intended to keep you up to date with all the major news in Europe’s gas and power markets. It is also designed to keep power executives focused on market activity in an easy to digest format.

Your find our December 2010 report here and all historical energy reports can be located here.

If you would like more information on our services or would like to find out how this could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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Fact and Figures about Global Warming

There are many facts and myths surrounding global warming but there is no debate in the scientific world that human evolution has contributed to it. In this article you will find facts and figures that prove human kind are contributing towards climate change. In the last 50 years, Alaska’s temperature has gone up around twice the rate of the rest of the world.

This could very well be because Alaska is close to one of the biggest producers of green house gases countries.

Aviation is considered responsible for about 3.5% of climate change, but that figure could reach 15% by 2050 as air travel increases.

If China eventually uses as much paper as the U.S. currently does, it will need twice as much as the entire world now produces. Imagine how many trees will have to be cut down to produce that much paper.

Landfills account for more than one-third of all emissions of methane (a greenhouse gas) in the United States. In third world countries this margin is even bigger.

Loading the dishwasher fully, instead of using partial loads, can save about 100 pounds of carbon a year.

Putting your computer in sleep mode instead of using a screen saver is good for saving almost 1,100 pounds of carbon annually.

Since 2007 China is the world leader in total carbon dioxide emissions with 6018m metric tonnes of CO2. But that doesn’t mean China is the most polluting nation in the world.

A more useful metric is carbon emissions per capita, the average American is responsible for 19.8 tonnes per person, and the average Chinese citizen clocks in at 4.6 tonnes. The UK’s CO2 per capita is at 9.7 tonnes per person while Australia is on 20.6 per person.

One thing that there is no debate among scientists and climate change experts is that we need to reduce our CO2 emissions and a way to do that is to invest in renewable energy generation resources.

If you would like more information on our range of energy broker services or would like to find out how this could benefit your business, simply call our energy team today on 0870 710 7560 or request a call back at time to suit.

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