The internet is costing you more than you think

Some of my readers expressed confusion regarding the following post.  I was distracted and may not have given it a very good introduction, so let me try again.

Last summer someone shared this article with me and I was really impressed with the way it was written and the topic it covered.  If you're like me, you've never even thought any in-depth thoughts about the internet.  We get service, we email, we google, we blog, we research... it's pretty simple, right?  Well, the author, Jane Anne Morris, takes you past the screen in front of you and begs you to consider the bigger picture.  There is a lot of information on the internet!  Just like on your computer, it's got to be stored somewhere.  These somewheres are called server farms.  And that's not just a cute name... they actually take up acres and acres of good farmland!  Huge buildings packed with computer processers that use copious amounts of electricity (not just in themselves, but the buildings are air conditioned to keep the processors cool).  Every time we send email, buy a book, search for photos, we're tapping into this system.  The craziest thing about it is that we don't think about the internet's drain on the environment and our resources (not the least of which is this farmland that could be producing FOOD)...  as the author says, "The Internet seems clean because its ecological footprint is elsewhere. "

A lot of folks are getting on the good food bandwagon  now that they have an idea of where our food comes from.  Keep thinking along those lines!  Think about what you use on a daily basis, where it comes from and what it really costs you.  I'm not saying you have to give it up (not there myself, yet), but just be an aware consumer.

Please go read the article!   Here are a few snippets...

Where do you think all your stored emails are? They’re not in the hands of tiny file clerks inside your computer — exactly. Nor in the library computer, where you can access them. Where are all those Bible-length attachments that nobody read but you’re saving anyway? The hot web sites and blogs? Where do we imagine all this stuff is?

It’s in the Cloud — the everything-seemingly-everywhere there-ness of the Internet. The Internet Cloud is generated and maintained by facilities called data centers or web server farms. These rustic-sounding server farms (think of a geek with a hayfork?), like Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), are tucked — if something that covers dozens or even hundreds of acres can be said to be “tucked” — here and there across the country, downplayed if not concealed in generic buildings.

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Imagine a refrigerator wrapped around an electric stove, and you have the essence of a server farm: a pig-in-a-blanket that consumes electricity in almost unimaginable quantities.

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Google Corporation alone reputedly already uses over 20 server farms, housing some half a million servers...........   Converted to residences, that’s about five million homes’ worth of electric capacity.

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Server farms get cut-rate electricity: per-kilowatt-hour rates cited in recent articles range from 1.8 to 3.4¢. [13] You did read that right. If I divide my monthly electric bill by the number of kwh I use, it always comes to over 20¢ per kwh. But I don’t pay industrial rates, which average out nationally just over 5¢ per kwh, and I don’t get other special deals often offered to large users. [14]

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The ecological footprint of a server farm isn’t any prettier than that of a power plant, a toxic waste dump, a gigantic feedlot, or a freeway. The Cloud is floating on a cradle-to-grave network of wrecked aquifers, oily cormorants, radioactive tumbleweed, and melting icecaps. According to one analyst, ordering a book online burns a half-pound of coal. [16] The Internet seems clean because its ecological footprint is elsewhere.

That's just scratching the surface of this excellent, eye-opening article.  Read the whole thing here.