The New York Times reported that Internet sites waste huge amounts of energy and that worldwide “the digital warehouses use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants.” The study reviewed “20,000 servers in about 70 large data centers spanning the commercial gamut: drug companies, military contractors, banks, media companies and government agencies.”
Although the public may think that the Internet is green and clean this report certainly belies that concept:
Most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of energy in an incongruously wasteful manner, interviews and documents show. Online companies typically run their facilities at maximum capacity around the clock, whatever the demand. As a result, data centers can waste 90 percent or more of the electricity they pull off the grid.
Given the Greenpeace report entitled “How Clean is Your Cloud?” issued earlier this year, the New York Times report is not much of a surprise.