5 ms·

Bandwidth is extremely carbon intensive. Someone viewing a couple of few 25MP images online could use 20g to 100g of CO2 (depending on compression).

ChrisRR 4y ago
And how much carbon would they use having those photos printed out and mailed to them to look at? Given that they could be streaming 1080p video instead, I think viewing a few photos is a relatively harmless hobby
- worldofmatthew 4y ago
  Physical item that can be looked out for 20 to 50 years vs a digital image. Not the same thing.
ttoinou 4y ago
Source ?
- worldofmatthew 4y ago
  https://www.emergeinteractive.com/insights/detail/does-irresponsible-web-development-contribute-to-global-warming/ https://www.emergeinteractive.com/insights/detail/does-irres... In the US as of 2020, it was 3KG CO2 per GB Data.
  - cosarara 4y ago
    I don't agree with the reasoning presented. It takes the estimate for the amount of energy that it takes to run the internet infrastructure and clients (141GW * 8765h in a year = 1235865 GWh), divides it by the amount of data transferred yearly (241 billion GB) and gets to 5.12kWh/GB. You might argue that if people download more data, more equipment needs to run to enable it, but really all this energy consumption is happening regardless of my PC being idle or saturating its fiber pipes with torrents. If your website weights 14kb, all this same equipment needs to be on for my PC to load it.
    - worldofmatthew 4y ago
      The website usage on the client side is more to do with resource usage. Unnecessary usage of Javascript is often what makes websites laggy. You computer will normally down-clock (you can turn this off in the bios) when under lighter loads.The difference between a JS-free webpage and a bloated web page that uses multiple JavaScript with extra Javascript for ads and tracking could be around 10W/H to 40W/H on Desktops.
      - cosarara 4y ago
        I agree with this. I was disagreeing with the statement > Bandwidth is extremely carbon intensive. and the reasoning that supports that statement.
        worldofmatthew 4y ago
        If people used less bandwidth, less new equipment would be bought to serve the increasing demand. Less bandwidth = Less carbon.
        cosarara 4y ago
        Maybe, or maybe the new equipment is much more efficient than the one it's replacing. It sounds true, but you can't really tell if it is or not, and really my annoyance is in saying it costs any estimated amount of energy, or carbon, to transfer 1GB of data. It does not, the transfer itself is basically cost-less. What costs money is running the infrastructure that makes it possible, and that's much harder to measure.
  - ttoinou 4y ago
    What matters is the marginal consumption. It should be really small. Averages don't mean much. I can download one GB of Data for almost free, I doubt I would burn 3 kg of CO2 doing that
bmacho 4y ago
And who pays for that?
lozenge 4y ago
We create 40kg of CO2 a day each through our diet, transport, consumption and other energy use. The idea we need to target our energy burden on Internet routers is absurd.
- worldofmatthew 4y ago
  14 tons per year is pretty high. Most calculators estimate my usage at 6 tons per year.
  - lozenge 4y ago
    The US average is 15 metric tons and that's production-based, ie counting exports and not counting imports. If you count imports and stop counting exports it would be higher. Now the US does rank highly in this measure but that's also where the 'typical' HN reader is. The typical reader is also well off which can make a huge difference(flights etc).
- docmars 4y ago
  I lament the day this becomes policy to regulate average internet usage due to a few religious fanatics who fail to understand that higher levels of CO2 enrich the Earth, and that science has been sabotaged to suit political ambitions fueled by fear porn.
tracker1 4y ago
The bandwidth used for single images is dwarfed... massively by streaming video content... I don't think it's a use case that is worthy of excessive time/effort to optimize for size because of bandwidth cost/effects. edit: I'm not saying don't do it if you can get away with a smaller image dimension, or do basic optimizations... but if your concern is the environmental impact from a simgle high-resolution image from a photography site, you're putting the emphasis in the wrong place.

ChrisRR 4y ago

And how much carbon would they use having those photos printed out and mailed to them to look at? Given that they could be streaming 1080p video instead, I think viewing a few photos is a relatively harmless hobby

worldofmatthew 4y ago
Physical item that can be looked out for 20 to 50 years vs a digital image. Not the same thing.

ttoinou 4y ago

Source ?

worldofmatthew 4y ago
https://www.emergeinteractive.com/insights/detail/does-irresponsible-web-development-contribute-to-global-warming/ https://www.emergeinteractive.com/insights/detail/does-irres... In the US as of 2020, it was 3KG CO2 per GB Data.
- cosarara 4y ago
  I don't agree with the reasoning presented. It takes the estimate for the amount of energy that it takes to run the internet infrastructure and clients (141GW * 8765h in a year = 1235865 GWh), divides it by the amount of data transferred yearly (241 billion GB) and gets to 5.12kWh/GB. You might argue that if people download more data, more equipment needs to run to enable it, but really all this energy consumption is happening regardless of my PC being idle or saturating its fiber pipes with torrents. If your website weights 14kb, all this same equipment needs to be on for my PC to load it.
  - worldofmatthew 4y ago
    The website usage on the client side is more to do with resource usage. Unnecessary usage of Javascript is often what makes websites laggy. You computer will normally down-clock (you can turn this off in the bios) when under lighter loads.The difference between a JS-free webpage and a bloated web page that uses multiple JavaScript with extra Javascript for ads and tracking could be around 10W/H to 40W/H on Desktops.
    - cosarara 4y ago
      I agree with this. I was disagreeing with the statement > Bandwidth is extremely carbon intensive. and the reasoning that supports that statement.
      - worldofmatthew 4y ago
        If people used less bandwidth, less new equipment would be bought to serve the increasing demand. Less bandwidth = Less carbon.
        cosarara 4y ago
        Maybe, or maybe the new equipment is much more efficient than the one it's replacing. It sounds true, but you can't really tell if it is or not, and really my annoyance is in saying it costs any estimated amount of energy, or carbon, to transfer 1GB of data. It does not, the transfer itself is basically cost-less. What costs money is running the infrastructure that makes it possible, and that's much harder to measure.
- ttoinou 4y ago
  What matters is the marginal consumption. It should be really small. Averages don't mean much. I can download one GB of Data for almost free, I doubt I would burn 3 kg of CO2 doing that

bmacho 4y ago

And who pays for that?

lozenge 4y ago

We create 40kg of CO2 a day each through our diet, transport, consumption and other energy use. The idea we need to target our energy burden on Internet routers is absurd.

worldofmatthew 4y ago
14 tons per year is pretty high. Most calculators estimate my usage at 6 tons per year.
- lozenge 4y ago
  The US average is 15 metric tons and that's production-based, ie counting exports and not counting imports. If you count imports and stop counting exports it would be higher. Now the US does rank highly in this measure but that's also where the 'typical' HN reader is. The typical reader is also well off which can make a huge difference(flights etc).
docmars 4y ago
I lament the day this becomes policy to regulate average internet usage due to a few religious fanatics who fail to understand that higher levels of CO2 enrich the Earth, and that science has been sabotaged to suit political ambitions fueled by fear porn.

tracker1 4y ago

The bandwidth used for single images is dwarfed... massively by streaming video content... I don't think it's a use case that is worthy of excessive time/effort to optimize for size because of bandwidth cost/effects. edit: I'm not saying don't do it if you can get away with a smaller image dimension, or do basic optimizations... but if your concern is the environmental impact from a simgle high-resolution image from a photography site, you're putting the emphasis in the wrong place.