HOME >> WHITE PAPER

Greening the Internet and Its Environmental Implications

Excerpt:

"Internet usage and the demand for power hungry software applications is one of the fastest growing areas of energy consumption. Today that energy consumption predominantly comes from non-renewable sources that both deplete our natural resources, and also emit greenhouse gases like CO2. Over the last five years the use of IT related data systems and the power and cooling infrastructures that support them have doubled energy use to 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. By 2011, electrical consumption by datacenters is projected to nearly double to 100 billion kWh, costing more than $7.4 billion. U.S. data centers contribute as much pollution annually as 4.7 million cars or 5.3 million U.S. households electricity usage*."