Mobile
TL;DR: The programming language matters; massive data centers require huge amounts of power to handle storage, processing, and information distribution, with thousands of servers operating around the clock. Computing and cooling use up a lot of power.
It's estimated that the internet consumes 1021 TWh per year, more than the United Kingdom. Devices, transmission networks, and data centers all consume electricity, generating carbon emissions at least equal to the aviation industry. On average, one view per webpage produces the equivalent of 0.8 g of CO2, which comes to 102 kg CO2e per year for a website with 10,000 monthly pageviews.
Businesses are increasingly turning to green web hosting providers, with 78% of consumers stating that sustainability is critical. Green hosts use renewable energy sources like solar or wind power for their servers and data centers and reduce their carbon footprint through optimized cooling, virtualization, and other energy-efficient practices. Green-only hosting providers, as well as big brands, offer eco-friendly hosting packages to help protect the environment.
It's estimated that developing a website in JavaScript consumes more than three times the energy that developing it in HTML would require, which is worth considering. The negative correlation between mobile web apps' energy use and performance scores is statistically significant with medium to large effect sizes, which may indicate that better performance leads to lower energy consumption.
Websites vs. office buildings: A comparison
Small and midsize office buildings use about 26 cubic feet of natural gas and 13 kWh of electric power a year per square foot. HVAC, lighting, and computing tend to use the most energy. However, large-scale platforms like Google and Facebook and cryptocurrency platforms consume more power than entire office buildings, or even small cities for that matter. Their massive data centers require huge amounts of power to handle storage, processing, and information distribution.
Data centers are enormous facilities filled with thousands of servers that run 24/7. They require vast amounts of electricity for both computing and cooling. Companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta use power-hungry GPUs and TPUs to train and run AI models. Platforms like Netflix and TikTok process and stream petabytes of data daily, requiring significant power. Services like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud power millions of businesses worldwide, adding to the demand.
Google's greenhouse gas emissions rose by almost 50% in five years, partly due to its AI data center buildout. The company reported that its 2023 emissions were up 48% over five years and 13% compared with 2022, reaching 14.3 million metric tons of CO2. Data center power consumption grew 17% in 2023, even though the company maintained a 100% renewable energy match globally.
Data center power consumption is 240–340TWh worldwide, or around 1–1.3% of final power demand. Google's data centers consumed 24TWh in 2023, equivalent to 7-10% of global consumption.
FAQ
Can internet users control power consumption?
While screen power consumption is generally under the user's control via brightness and screen on time, elements like hardware, CPU, and GPU have high dynamic ranges. The system adapts CPU and GPU usage based on the respective tasks, including rendering webpages in users' browsers. It does this by changing the clock frequency and switching some components on or off. Generally, there is an inversely proportional relationship between chips' power efficiency and the performance that is required from them.
What is a possible solution to websites' excess power consumption?
A team of experts tested website power use on a laptop set at 50% brightness and 100% battery, disabled backup mechanisms, closed all apps, and took power consumption measures 10-30 seconds after each website request. The test revealed that Vimeo, YouTube, and other video-heavy sites consumed little more energy than image- or text-only sites. The New York Times drew the most power. The NY Times might excel if the rating was based on the number of inter-actable items available per site. Search engines might consider marking overly power-hungry websites like fridges are labeled from A to A+++.Latest in Opinion
-
How Leadership Skills Make an Organization Successful
Apr 10, 2025 -
What Does 'Employer Liability' Mean?
Apr 10, 2025 -
Financial Planning Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs
Apr 10, 2025 - More »
More by Alan Watts
-
How Leadership Skills Make an Organization Successful
Apr 10, 2025 -
What Does 'Employer Liability' Mean?
Apr 10, 2025 -
Financial Planning Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs
Apr 10, 2025 - More »
