Environmental benefits of the cloud

Relaxnews


Tuesday, 7 December 2010

Research released December 6 by clean-tech market intelligence company Pike Research has found that the rise of cloud computing could have a positive environmental impact and help reduce the IT industry's massive carbon footprint, which is estimated to account for 2 percent of the world's total carbon emissions.


Cloud computing is simply internet-based computing in which resources, software and information are shared between computers on demand rather than being stored on a separate server.

Pike Research points out that while cloud computing has expanded quickly it has most often been seen as a compelling alternative to traditional data centers, while the energy saving benefits had not been seriously considered. However, based on its latest data, Pike Research calculates that the adoption of cloud computing could lead to a 38 percent reduction in energy usage in the world's data centers by 2020. The company estimates that due to the growth of cloud computing energy consumption will decrease from the current rate of 201.8 terawatt hours (TWh) (1012 Watt hours) to 139.8 TWh in 2020, which equates to a 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

However, while any environmental benefits of cloud computing won't be felt for a few years, a number of websites are already attempting to have a positive environmental impact. Green search engines such as eco-search and goodsearch.com work in partnership with giants such as Google, but they donate the majority of their profit to environmental or other charitable causes.

Larger companies such as Yahoo and Google are also taking steps to minimize their environmental impact. On September 20, 2010, Yahoo opened one of the world's most energy-efficient data centers, located outside of New York, and Google stores its servers in shipping crates in an attempt to reduce the amount of energy needed to cool them and even operates a "cooler-less" facility in Belgium.

For more information about Eco Search see: http://www.ecosearch.org/

For more information about Good Search see: http://www.goodsearch.com/