Mitigating the environmental impact of the internet

Huw Owen, CEO of Ark Data Centres, asked his audience to think back to the Industrial Revolution, and the factories that it embodied. “Machinery, people, rules, tools and processes. Together in single buildings, [they] made a huge difference in the face of that industrial revolution.”

Consider, now, the modern world and its huge capacity for data movement and traffic. Owen explained that those industrial factories data centres in modern day. Telecommunications move data through power and fibres. Connected devices amounting to billions, the growth of digital transformation absolutely unharnessed.

Half of the data in motion across the globe is on your smartphone. What does this mean to each individual? Owen echoed commonplace dismissals from the average smartphone users, ‘my stuff’s in the cloud’ and its translation: “A technology stack in a building.”

The internet is a global utility

Pip Squire, Head of Sustainability, Ark Data Centres, continued the discussion as he analogised the internet to the electric utility you buy from your provider. The internet has three large groups:

• End user devices – This include the aforementioned smartphones which use 50% of the internet’s energy.
• Communications – 25% of energy goes on the communications between the end devices and the processing factory (data centre).
• Processing facility – The remaining 25% is used within the facility itself.

Squire recalled a stat from earlier in his career when data centres and the IT they supported accounted for 30% of the internet’s energy load. Nowadays, that’s 85%.

To address this, solutions include having less battery backup and generators. “We pushed the laws of physics to the point where we are almost impossible without changing another rule.” Squire also explained that at Ark Data Centres, they purchase their electricity three years in advance.

In doing this, he said: “I’m telling my supplier that I’m going to be buying over a million pounds worth of electricity every month so make sure you’ve got all the New Year renewable energy you need to support that demand. We’re basically forcing the renewable energy market – the way the market is meant to work.”

Further to this, the backup generators that Ark use will replace their diesel with HBO hydrotreated vegetable oil by the end of March. This reduces the fossil CO2 emissions by 90%, NOx by 17% and particulates by 28%. Squire stated that by the end of the year their total CO2 emissions, based on the energy consumed, will be 20 tons – drastically down from 200 last year.

Other sustainable measures that Ark use include ‘water cooling’ which collects rainwater and evaporates it into the air steam to reach 10 degrees lower. This is energy-efficient and free, and reduces water demand on the public network.

In addition, Squire informed his audience of Ark’s five hectares of conservation areas. From beehives to bats, their mission to increase biodiversity is clearcut for people to follow suit.

Understanding the cost of energy

One of the main takeaways from this talk is that users needs to understand more about how their energy is being used. Many have obscene amounts of photos on their phones that they rarely or may never access.

Most websites leave their content and pages up forever. Without deletion or archiving, the data is constantly using energy. Though this may seem abstract and foreign, listeners are urged to consider the cost of the internet which is built on a ’freemium’ model and sustained through advertorials and sales.

Quire leaves his audience with this question: “Do we need to store all data, all of the time, for all time?”