How green is our Internet use in Australia?

This is what the final report on a 2008 review of the Australian Government’s use of information and communication technology (ICT) said:
There is a significant disconnect between the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand and manage energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate.

It would appear that government/business Internet use and just surfing the Web at home may save on paper and sometimes result in decreased car travel, but it does have greenhouse gas consequences.

Webupon discusses a 2007 article originally posted by Floating World:
We asked Aaron Handford, President of Solar Energy Host how much carbon the net itself is generating and he had some surprising answers. According to Handford, “The Internet has a big carbon footprint. It's estimated that globally it takes about 868 billion kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity per year to run the Internet, associated PCs, routing infrastructure, and phone networks.” (UClue: Energy Use of Internet).
He notes, “Of this, about 112.5 Billion kWh are used to power "data centers", which are the servers that store all the websites."

UClue gives a link to Stanford University report ESTIMATING TOTAL POWER CONSUMPTION BY SERVERS IN THE U.S. AND THE WORLD.

This 2007 report concluded that:
Total power used by servers represented about 0.6% of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2005.
When cooling and auxiliary infrastructure are included, that number grows to 1.2%, an amount comparable to that for color televisions.
The total power demand in 2005 (including associated infrastructure) is equivalent (in capacity
terms) to about five 1000 MW power plants for the U.S. and 14 such plants for the world.
The total electricity bill for operating those servers and associated infrastructure in 2005
was about $2.7 B and $7.2 B for the U.S. and the world, respectively.

The Australian media is now reporting on the fact that a typical Internet search generates about 7g of Co2 and that globally there are 200 million searches each day.

All of this gives pause for thought.

If the average home PC user was initially thought to account for around 588 kwh of electricity per year producing an estimated 582 kg of green house gas emissions, then this (or its current equivalent) has to be added to our individual carbon footprints and the national account.
The nation also has to take into consideration not only its own PCs but just how big the carbon footprints are of the servers it uses.

With our national greenhouse gas emissions still rising rather than falling it definitely time to think of how we limit or mitigate our Internet use.

It is also time that ordinary Internet users began to ask the big search engines like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Firefox, etc., just what measures they are taking to actually switch their servers to clean energy.

So far we are hearing about what they are doing to 'green' their employee workplaces or transport, but little is being said about the huge amounts of dirty energy they now draw on to keep their servers going 24 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The rather impressive Google Climate Change Plan is notably for its failure to really come to terms with its own share of the approximately 868 billion kwhs it takes to run the Internet each year.
When it does allude to this dirty energy it speaks in terms of creating offsets, which do little to reduce actual energy consumption.

The fact that CSC, Dell Inc, Google Inc, HP, Intel Corporation, Lenova, Microsoft Corporation, have joined with the World Wildlife Fund to create the Climate Savers Computer Initiative is more a feel-good piece of PR than anything else, and if it is to be believed, almost all the servers these firms are associated with just happen to be recommended as energy efficient (115 servers in the Asia-Pacific alone).

How many kilowatt hours did you splurge on the Internet today? Using the 7 grams per search as a yardstick, I probably accounted for 1kg of greenhouse gas over only 5 hours last Monday.

Go to CO2Stats: making websites green for more information on how to get a paid audit of your own website.

UPDATE

The 7 grams per search figure is now disputed and Harvard researcher denies quote.

And the cane toad was this big.......

Clarencegirl's favourite holiday story this year about cornering a cane toad in her kitchen the size of a fat hamster, large rabbit, Mack truck - well you get the picture - reminds me that the weather we've been having on the North Coast this summer is rather good for breeding nasty cane toads and Aussie frogs that look a little like cane toads at first glance.
So here's a couple of snaps to help you tell the difference, as you go out at night to nab in a plastic bag and freeze to death the toads at the bottom of the garden.


This is an adult cane toad.

So is this.

This is the Eastern Banjo Frog.

Australian Museum Fact Sheet on the Cane Toad pointing out distinctive features

Pics come from the ABC, National Parks & Wildlife and Picassa

Coles/Bi-Lo need to remember that there is no excuse for sloppy overcharging at the check-out

The Bi-Lo supermarket at Yamba has become a local byword for the worst business practices.

Its overcharging at check-outs has become so common that some alert local residents frequently manage to get at least a few grocery items per month for free when they front the store with evidence of overcharging.

However, the fact that a shopper noticing a difference between shelf price and docket price can get the item in question for free is no excuse for such blatant mismanagement.

Overcharging during the 2008-09 festive break was so noticeable that one regular interstate visitor told North Coast Voices that she found $13 worth of discrepancies on a $113 docket.

This type of bad experience can drive tourists away and, if Coles/Bi-Lo was a good corporate citizen it would take its Yamba management in hand and insist that such stupidity cease.

PETA finally falls over the edge and into The Far Side

This is a screen shot of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign against fishing and eating fish.

Now PETA's main argument is that fish feel pain and therefore suffer when caught and killed.
I don't think anyone would dispute that point.

However, it can be argued that all organic life 'feels' to some degree and that it probably 'hurts' when grain is harvested or fruit picked from trees.

It follows that, if PETA's criteria were to be the universal yardstick, then we humans would be obliged to starve to death.

So a campaign to protect fish by renaming them sea kittens is definitely something worthy of being placed alongside those chatty upright cows in The Far Side .

Conroy gets zinged again on his grand Internet censorship plan

2009 is not shaping up as a good year for the Australian Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy.

First we hear that Derek Bambauer poured cold water on his national mandatory ISP-level filtering plan and now IT experts tell us the Minister is dreaming if he thinks he can selectively filter BitTorrent, LimeWire, Kazaa or other peer -to-peer networks.

Peer-to-peer filtering is an impediment to business is the bottom line it seems.
With few believing the technology exists to do anything but completely block all file sharing networks, thereby starving Australian business, research and development of a useful tool.

Computer World is inviting readers to sign its online petition:

Concerned about freedom of communication? Click here to sign Computerworld's Hands Off Australia's Internet petition. Make your voice heard!

Defining a small coastal town

Letter to the Editor

The Daily Examiner

6 January 2009

Click on image to enlarge

Now many locals as well as some tourists would define Yamba (at the mouth of the Clarence River) by its sense of community, social life, streetscapes and access to river, ocean or beaches.
However, one local in a moment of unconscious humour points out that Yamba might be defined in part by its lack of a cemetery!

New Australian Electoral Commission head: come on down, Ed!

"Mr Ed Killesteyn commenced his five year appointment as the Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 5 January 2009.
Mr Killesteyn said he was pleased and honoured to be appointed to the position of Electoral Commissioner, and looked forward to continuing the AEC’s strong and well deserved reputation for delivering an electoral system that serves well Australia’s democratic heritage.
Mr Killesteyn has held a number of senior Public Service positions, including four years as a Deputy Secretary at the then Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs, and most recently as the Deputy President of the Repatriation Commission and a Deputy Secretary at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. "
Now Ed has a bit of a chequered history hidden in that wee bio - anyone remember Truth Overboard and the Palmer Report on DIMIA's treatment of Cornelia Rau?

A soft word of warning to Ed, as he starts one of the most important public service jobs in Australia (running our elections) - don't stuff up!