The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/
Anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate draws on five years of research and ethnographic fieldwork in server farms to illustrate some of the diverse environmental impacts of data storage.
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The words you are reading are a point of entry into an ethereal realm that many call the “Cloud.”
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But just as the clouds above us, however formless or ethereal they may appear to be, are in fact made of matter, the Cloud of the digital is also relentlessly material.
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To get at the matter of the Cloud we must unravel the coils of coaxial cables, fiber optic tubes, cellular towers, air conditioners, power distribution units, transformers, water pipes, computer servers, and more. We must attend to its material flows of electricity, water, air, heat, metals, minerals, and rare earth elements that undergird our digital lives. In this way, the Cloud is not only material, but is also an ecological force. As it continues to expand, its environmental impact increases, even as the engineers, technicians, and executives behind its infrastructures strive to balance profitability with sustainability.
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Cloud the Carbonivore
Heat is the waste product of computation, and if left unchecked, it becomes a foil to the workings of digital civilization.
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In North America, most data centers draw power from “dirty” electricity grids, especially in Virginia’s “data center alley,” the site of 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic in 2019. To cool, the Cloud burns carbon, what Jeffrey Moro calls an “elemental irony.” In most data centers today, cooling accounts for greater than 40 percent of electricity usage.
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While some of the most advanced, “hyperscale” data centers, like those maintained by Google, Facebook, and Amazon, have pledged to transition their sites to carbon-neutral […] , many of the smaller-scale data centers that I observed lack the resources and capital to pursue similar sustainability initiatives.
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if the entire Cloud shifted to hyperscale facilities, energy usage might drop as much as 25 percent.
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Mais rendu là, ferions nous face au Paradoxe de Jevons?
the Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes. At 200 terawatt hours (TWh) annually, data centers collectively devour more energy than some nation-states. Today, the electricity utilized by data centers accounts for 0.3 percent of overall carbon emissions, and if we extend our accounting to include networked devices like laptops, smartphones, and tablets, the total shifts to 2 percent of global carbon emissions.
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In some cases, only 6 to 12 percent of energy consumed is devoted to active computational processes. The remainder is allocated to cooling and maintaining chains upon chains of redundant fail-safes to prevent costly downtime.
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Cloud is also quite thirsty
the Cloud is also quite thirsty. Like a pasture, server farms are irrigated.
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This shift from cooling air to cooling water is an attempt to reduce carbon footprint, but it comes at a cost. Weathering historic drought and heat domes, communities in the western United States are increasingly strained for water resources.
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some politicians are now openly opposing the construction of data centers, framing the centers’ water usage as inessential and irresponsible given resource constraints.
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Data centers consume millions of gallons of Arizona water daily.
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Qu'en est-il de ceux que nous avons au Québec?
explosive growth expected in data storage infrastructures over the next decade, a tripling by some estimates.
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global temperatures are projected to rise by 2.7◦C by the end of the century […] creating near-ubiquitous conditions of water scarcity by 2040 if governments and companies fail to intensify their efforts to curb emissions.
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The Cloud Is Not Silent
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Over vast distances, the sonic exhaust of our digital lives reverberates: the minute vibrations of hard disks, the rumbling of air chillers, the cranking of diesel generators, the mechanical spinning of fans. Data centers emit acoustic waste, what environmentalists call “noise pollution.”
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The acute and longitudinal physiological effects of industrial noise pollution are well-documented to include hearing loss, elevated stress hormones like cortisol, hypertension, and insomnia.
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Unlike other industries, data centers are largely self-regulating: There is no sweeping federal agency to govern the siting and operation of new and existing facilities.
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Immortal Waste
Since the year 2007, when the first smartphone debuted on the marketplace, over seven billion devices of the sort have since been manufactured. Their lifespans average less than two years, a consequence of designed obsolescence and a thirst to profit from flashy new features and capabilities.
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Under grueling conditions, miners tirelessly plumb the earth for the rare metals required to make information and communications technology (ICT) devices. Then, in vast factories like Foxconn located in the Global South, where labor can be procured cheaply and legal protections for workers are scant, smartphones are assembled and shipped out to consumers, only to be discarded in a matter of months, to end up in e-waste graveyards like those of Agbogbloshie, Ghana. These metals, many of which are toxic and contain radioactive elements, take millennia to decay.
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Historian Nathan Ensmenger writes that a single desktop computer requires 240 kilograms of fossil fuels, 22 kilograms of chemicals, and 1,500 kilograms of water to manufacture.
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Historian Nathan Ensmenger writes that a single desktop computer requires 240 kilograms of fossil fuels, 22 kilograms of chemicals, and 1,500 kilograms of water to manufacture.
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The ecological dynamics we find ourselves in are not entirely a consequence of design limits, but of human practices and choices — among individuals, communities, corporations, and governments — combined with a deficit of will and imagination to bring about a sustainable Cloud. The Cloud is both cultural and technological. Like any aspect of culture, the Cloud’s trajectory — and its ecological impacts — are not predetermined or unchangeable. Like any aspect of culture, they are mutable.