Tweets, Emails, and The Cloud: The Climate Change Implications of The Digital Age
Every single day, billions of people connect to the internet in some way, shape, or form. Whether it is people sending work emails, perusing social media, downloading statistical data, or sharing photos, more information is online now than at any point in history. As with most other facets of society, online activities have their own set of challenges within the context of global warming.
The digital age is incredibly energy-intensive, as the data centers that store all online information consume 2% of the world’s electricity, and that figure will only rise as more devices and information are connected online. Most of the electricity used to power online activities is generated from fossil fuel-based energy sources, which emit the greenhouse gases that are driving global warming. All of our online actions have their own carbon footprint and listed below are the environmental impacts of some common internet activities.
The average email has a carbon footprint of 4 grams of carbon dioxide, which is roughly equivalent to driving a car ~30 feet
Across the world, watching online videos generates roughly 300 million tons of carbon dioxide every year
Visiting the average website produces 4.61 grams of carbon dioxide per page view
While some of these numbers may seem small, with billions of internet users sending emails, visiting countless web pages, and watching videos, the total carbon emissions are substantial and these emissions unequivocally further global climate change.
Analysis: To reduce the carbon footprint of the Digital Age it is imperative to balance inevitable technological growth with both energy efficiency innovations and individual energy conservation measures.
Moving into the future, it will be imperative to balance the continued evolution of digital technology with energy efficiency. As the world develops new, faster devices and wireless communication, all of which are energy-intensive, data centers must evolve to use less energy. At the forefront of this global effort to develop more energy efficient technology for data centers is Ellie Price of Iris Light Technologies, who shared some insight on this crucial field.
Can you describe exactly what you and the rest of the Iris Light Technology team are working on and how it fits within a climate change context?
Ellie: At Iris Light we are reimaging the way lasers are made. If you think about the Netflix you are streaming, or anytime you order something on Amazon, or save files on Google Drive, you use The Cloud. The cloud is powered by data centers, which produce 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, it is predicted that 75 billion devices will be connected to the internet of things in the next decade, which will probably require roughly a 1,000x increase in bandwidth capacity, which current data centers cannot support. Building more data centers will only require more electricity, so the goal is to make current data centers more efficient, which is where Iris Light comes in. Data centers are limited to a certain quantity of data transmission based on silicon photonics light chips, since these chips only have a single laser per chip. At Iris, we have found a way to use a naturally occurring material and turn it into a laser ink to print onto chips. We can print hundreds of lasers on a chip in the space where there used to only be one. This will massively increase the capacity of data centers while also making these centers energy efficient.
Where do you see this technology progressing in the future and how do you believe it will mitigate climate change?
Ellie: This is a really exciting question to answer! Right now, light chips are used inside sensors in all types of devices and most of these sensors serve only one primary purpose, such as a methane detector. At Iris, we are able to print multiple lasers onto a single chip and make multi-colored laser sensors that can detect or sense multiple substances of interest.
One way I’d hope to see our technology used in the future for addressing climate change is in hypothetical smart city centers. In this scenario, city buildings with a sensor powered by our chips could receive real time-data on different environmental metrics such as toxin and pollutant levels or water and air quality grades. Another example is our chips could be used in sensors that detect carbon emissions and provide real-time feedback so that users can make quick decisions on how to better mitigate these emissions. At Iris, we really hope to unlock the entire silicon photonics industry for multiple uses and markets, and that has many applications for climate change!
How to Help through Individual Conservation Efforts
There are many ways that each and every one of us who use the internet can reduce our digital carbon footprint, and in turn, limit the amount of greenhouse emissions from online data consumption. While the reduction in emissions from changing personal online habits are miniscule compared to energy efficiency technological innovation, they are still an important way that individuals can curtail their own carbon footprint. Listed below are three keys for how anyone can reduce their personal online carbon emissions.
Improve Email Habits. As previously mentioned, the average email creates roughly 4 grams of carbon dioxide. By deleting old and unnecessary emails, you free up space on servers at data centers, which means that they require less energy to operate, therefore reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted. Additionally, by not sending unnecessary emails you do not generate the carbon dioxide emissions that come from the creation of new emails.
Limit Unnecessary Scrolling and Media Watching on The Internet. Once again, every webpage view or video watched generates carbon emissions. A simple way to reduce your digital carbon footprint is to replace unnecessary or boredom scrolling with another activity, such as exercise, board games, or book reading. A little less screen time couldn’t hurt anyone!
Use Search Engines Dedicated to Helping the Environment. There are many alternative search engines to Google and Bing that invest portions of their revenue into environmental causes. Ecosia and GiveWater invest large portions of the revenue derived from searches into tree planting efforts and clean water initiatives, respectively. For more search engines that use their profits for social good, click here.
Conclusion
It is inevitable that the world’s online presence will continue to broaden over the next few decades, and with that comes increased energy demands met by electricity derived from fossil fuels. If society can develop innovate technological solutions to reduce the world’s digital carbon footprint and individuals can change their personal online habits to conserve energy, the digital world has the potential to definitively reduce its negative environmental impact.
A special thank you to Ellie Price from Iris Light Techologies for sharing her invaluable first-hand knowledge and experience for this article.
Bibliography
Image from Design Woop
Calculator, Website Carbon, et al. “What's the Carbon Footprint of Your Website?: Climate Protection.” RESET.to, en.reset.org/blog/whats-carbon-footprint-your-website-01162020.
“Iris Light Technologies: Silicon Photonics.” Iris Light Tech, www.irislighttech.com/about-us.
“Why Your Internet Habits Are Not as Clean as You Think.” BBC Future, BBC, www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think.
