The internet eats up less energy than you might think • Hacker News Board

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#31

Post by maccard » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:07 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #27

joecool1029 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's probably important to point out that while Google may purchase 100% of their energy usage from renewable sources, this does not actually mean the datacenters run on renewable sources: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/renewable/ I bring this up as renewables are currently supplemental and don't replace base load. Hydro storage isn't available/practical for all regions, nuclear has been deemed too…

> this does not actually mean the datacenters run on renewable sources Yes, this is a problem. Let's say the grid uses 100 imaginary units of power per year. 50% is currently produced through solar and wind. Company A buys 50 units and company B buys 50 units a year, until company A gets a crisis of conscience and decides to go green. They manage to get a deal whereby they pay for a certificate that says that their 5…

Isn't it worse than that? If both companies purchase 100% renewables from the energy supplier, do they say no to one?

I disappointingly found out that my carbon neutral tariff doesn't guarantee a purchase of renewables, it just guarantees that any energy I use that is over their wholesale bought amount of renewable energy will be carbon offset, which is complete crap.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#32

Post by mopsi » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

southerntofu wrote: post #18

adflux wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is backwards because companies deciding to go CO2 neutral by using sustainable energy sources are contributing towards the Paris agreement. The same people who are complaining the loudest about the datacentres using green electricity, are the same people who would be complaining about the datacentres using fossils fuels, and the same people who use the services delivered by these datacentres. Companies are facing…

> How can a company ever go green as long as this kind of thought patterns are mainstream It's fundamentally impossible. Capitalism is what brought this ecological madness down on it, because of its shortsighted profit incentives. The very same system cannot fix the problem, because nothing has changed. Pointing out companies who used fossil fuels was intending to allow us as a society to realize we need to reduce co…

I fail to understand why you bring capitalism into this when it's the most efficient way of dealing with pollution, since it has a pricing mechanism for raw materials, pollution taxes, etc.

I've lived in the socialism on the USSR and seen what it looked like, it's day and night compared to how free countries deal with pollution. Guess what happens when raw materials are available for free, the economy is inefficient because why bother, and pollution doesn't matter because citizens can't vote anyone else into the office because there's only a single party. China happens. Rivers downstream from textile factories colored with dye-of-the-season, wire fences near cement factories opaque from dust, transport workers spilling diesel fuel into the ground for decades to hide slacking and sub-quota mileage, etc. I've seen it all with my own eyes.

When the first Western experts gained access after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were utterly devastated at the scale of environmental pollution. They had never seen anything this bad. The solution to everything had been "dig a ditch and throw it in", and if anyone complained, arrest and beat them until they shut up, or send to a labor camp if they don't.

The main problem in the West is similar socialism for the polluters, albeit on a much smaller scale. They get to pollute for very cheap, mostly abroad in China. They should be taxed for what raw materials and their pollution actually costs instead of the current artifically low levels achieved through outsourcing to lawless shithole countries, and environmental damage from their actions would be greatly reduced.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#33

Post by ashtonkem » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:24 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #29

ashtonkem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple themselves claims that roughly 80% of the emissions of an iPhone comes from production; with the remainder being transit, use, and end of life recycling. As far as electronics are concerned, the best thing you can do is defer upgrading as long as possible. Interestingly enough, the same is true for cars. It’s often better to just keep using an older car until it dies from a CO2 perspective (sometimes older cars…

Agree eith everything you've said, but with one caveat - the resale market for cars and consumer electronics is completely different. Everyone I know has a drawer full of old laptops/chargers/phones that were purchased new and are only destined for landfill. Meanwhile, cars get reused long after their first owner gets rid of them even if they replace them every two years.

It’s certainly much easier to keep a used car running for a decade than it is to keep a used phone running, that’s for sure. And there’s a market specifically designed to support that too.

I think the most realistic choice here is to not upgrade phones every 1-2 years, but stretch it to 3. The recent trend of Apple to not include all the accessories in the box is probably a net good, given how many chargers almost consumers have already too.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#34

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #33

maccard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree eith everything you've said, but with one caveat - the resale market for cars and consumer electronics is completely different. Everyone I know has a drawer full of old laptops/chargers/phones that were purchased new and are only destined for landfill. Meanwhile, cars get reused long after their first owner gets rid of them even if they replace them every two years.

It’s certainly much easier to keep a used car running for a decade than it is to keep a used phone running, that’s for sure. And there’s a market specifically designed to support that too. I think the most realistic choice here is to not upgrade phones every 1-2 years, but stretch it to 3. The recent trend of Apple to not include all the accessories in the box is probably a net good, given how many chargers almost co…

4 is definitely doable. More if you're in the apple ecosystem. iOS 15 (not yet releases) still supports the iPhone 6s which was originally released in 2015. I bought one last year as a testing device for work, and it's still a great phone (and much cheaper - £120 and had recently had it's battery replaced). On the android side you have to be more lucky, but my Samsung S7 (releases 2017) is still going strong and recieved a security update last month.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#35

Post by flaratt_ljos » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #34

ashtonkem wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly much easier to keep a used car running for a decade than it is to keep a used phone running, that’s for sure. And there’s a market specifically designed to support that too. I think the most realistic choice here is to not upgrade phones every 1-2 years, but stretch it to 3. The recent trend of Apple to not include all the accessories in the box is probably a net good, given how many chargers almost co…

4 is definitely doable. More if you're in the apple ecosystem. iOS 15 (not yet releases) still supports the iPhone 6s which was originally released in 2015. I bought one last year as a testing device for work, and it's still a great phone (and much cheaper - £120 and had recently had it's battery replaced). On the android side you have to be more lucky, but my Samsung S7 (releases 2017) is still going strong and reci…

I'm still using the iPhone 6s that I bought in 2015, and it's practically as good as new. It's still using the original battery, which doesn't seem to hold charge for as long anymore, but even so, it's doing remarkably well.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#36

Post by imperistan » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:22 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #34

ashtonkem wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly much easier to keep a used car running for a decade than it is to keep a used phone running, that’s for sure. And there’s a market specifically designed to support that too. I think the most realistic choice here is to not upgrade phones every 1-2 years, but stretch it to 3. The recent trend of Apple to not include all the accessories in the box is probably a net good, given how many chargers almost co…

4 is definitely doable. More if you're in the apple ecosystem. iOS 15 (not yet releases) still supports the iPhone 6s which was originally released in 2015. I bought one last year as a testing device for work, and it's still a great phone (and much cheaper - £120 and had recently had it's battery replaced). On the android side you have to be more lucky, but my Samsung S7 (releases 2017) is still going strong and reci…

I use a iPhone 5s. Works fine and I have no reason to upgrade at all. I think I have it for like five years now. I did get the battery replaced last year though

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#37

Post by Ekaros » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #3

Something that the article does not mention is that most of the large cloud providers are committed to 100% renewables when it comes to their energy usage. E.g. Google has been working on this for ages and most / all (?) of their data centers are running on clean energy. Most of the non sustainable energy consumption happens on the consumer side where most of us are dependent on grids that are also shifting to more s…

I have wondered about this too. They say it is green, but for that to be true due to renewables being intermittent shouldn't there be at least sometimes when there just isn't enough green energy? And thus shouldn't they close or stop getting delivery of energy at these times?

Also, how green are their backup power generation? Outside batteries?

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#38

Post by Ekaros » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

beckman466 wrote: post #17

jarvelov wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they listed them in alphabetical order for some reason.

Ah yes now I see it, thanks. It still seems a weird decision

Alphabetical is one of the more neutral ways to list names and companies.

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#39

Post by pkdpic_y9k » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

imperistan wrote: post #36

nicoburns wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 is definitely doable. More if you're in the apple ecosystem. iOS 15 (not yet releases) still supports the iPhone 6s which was originally released in 2015. I bought one last year as a testing device for work, and it's still a great phone (and much cheaper - £120 and had recently had it's battery replaced). On the android side you have to be more lucky, but my Samsung S7 (releases 2017) is still going strong and reci…

I use a iPhone 5s. Works fine and I have no reason to upgrade at all. I think I have it for like five years now. I did get the battery replaced last year though

I just regrettably got rid of my iphone 5S this year. God I miss that eighth inch jack... Why did I get rid of it again?

Re: The internet eats up less energy than you might think

#40

Post by dougSF70 » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

I think it still eats up a ton (technical term) of unnecessary energy as we have moved from owning physical objects to digital copies of the same thing. For example music, video, etc. Before 2000 you only needed electricity to play content not store it. This question is : did the production of a vinyl record / cd use more electricity than a lifetime of storage of its modern day digital equivalent? Given the absence of scarcity of digital music I would hazard a guess that the number of people that can own a spotify track vs the physical track is so much greater that the energy requirements are exponentially larger.