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"entire network already consumes 10% of global electricity production" - [citation needed]. I keep encountering blatantly wrong claims like "10 largest ships p

"entire network already consumes 10% of global electricity production" - [citation needed]. I keep encountering blatantly wrong claims like "10 largest ships pollute more than entire Europe" or "unplugging unused chargers is important" or "there is no global warming" or "global warming threatens extinction of Homo Sapiens" so often that I stopped treating such claims seriously, unless there are proper verifiable nonpaywalled citations.

mrpopo 6y ago
It is a hard topic, as it will depend on things like life-cycle analysis of network devices, but if you google a bit, all reports are in the 7-12% range. Around 10% of the world’s total electricity consumption is being used by the internet, according to a recent research report from Swedish KTH. [https://insidescandinavianbusiness.com/article.php?id=356 https://insidescandinavianbusiness.com/article.php?id=356] Our best-case analysis shows a decline in consumption from 7.4% in 2012 to 6.9% of total global electricity consumption in 2017; however the worst-case shows a rise to 12.0% driven primarily by expansion of the network and data-center infrastructure. [https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/3563 https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/3563] See figure (ICT electricity usage 2000kWh).[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y]
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  Very interesting. I would expect it to be much lower. I wonder how much of this is wasted on cryptocurrencies.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Regarding pollution, a specific problem is where a specific pollutant is high relative to others. For shipping, bunker fuel emissions are modest in CO2, but high in particulates and extraordinarily high in S02 emissions. You can literally visually identify major shipping lane by such emissions, as here in the Indian Ocean: https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/09/18/1000Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/winkel3=74.35,0.47,842/loc=76.572,7.053 https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/09/18/1000Z/chem/surface/... The thing is that there's a considerable set of commonly-tracked pollutants, with emissions varying greatly by source, as wwell as markedly different long-term and wide-are effects, some large, some small. The chargers claim ... is mostly bullshit, however. The claims may be both clickbait (misleading) and accurate (properly qualified).

mrpopo 6y ago

It is a hard topic, as it will depend on things like life-cycle analysis of network devices, but if you google a bit, all reports are in the 7-12% range. Around 10% of the world’s total electricity consumption is being used by the internet, according to a recent research report from Swedish KTH. [https://insidescandinavianbusiness.com/article.php?id=356 https://insidescandinavianbusiness.com/article.php?id=356] Our best-case analysis shows a decline in consumption from 7.4% in 2012 to 6.9% of total global electricity consumption in 2017; however the worst-case shows a rise to 12.0% driven primarily by expansion of the network and data-center infrastructure. [https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/3563 https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/handle/10379/3563] See figure (ICT electricity usage 2000kWh).[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06610-y]

matkoniecz 6y ago
Very interesting. I would expect it to be much lower. I wonder how much of this is wasted on cryptocurrencies.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Regarding pollution, a specific problem is where a specific pollutant is high relative to others. For shipping, bunker fuel emissions are modest in CO2, but high in particulates and extraordinarily high in S02 emissions. You can literally visually identify major shipping lane by such emissions, as here in the Indian Ocean: https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/09/18/1000Z/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/winkel3=74.35,0.47,842/loc=76.572,7.053 https://earth.nullschool.net/#2020/09/18/1000Z/chem/surface/... The thing is that there's a considerable set of commonly-tracked pollutants, with emissions varying greatly by source, as wwell as markedly different long-term and wide-are effects, some large, some small. The chargers claim ... is mostly bullshit, however. The claims may be both clickbait (misleading) and accurate (properly qualified).