Casting a Green Net
Ways in which IT can be made less damaging to the environment.
Recently, I met Chandrakant Patel, a Gujarati from Bihar who moved to the United States after school, and worked as a dishwasher as he put himself through community college. Today, Patel is a Fellow at Hewlett-Packard and works at HP Labs. He has some fascinating ideas about how the information technology industry can be made more environment friendly.
It may not seem much but the IT industry already makes for about two per cent of the total electricity consumption in the world. This is rising every year as more and more people not only buy computers, but also log into social media sites, consume increasing hours of Internet video and store everything on the cloud.
India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says he closes his ears every time leaders from the IT industry talk green. And if any of you have ever visited a data centre where thousands of computer servers are kept in rooms chilled at 18 to 20 degrees Celsius, you get an idea about the kind of energy consumption I am talking about.
To make matters worse, due to erratic electricity supply, most data centres and IT offices in India are powered by diesel generators, which, despite advances in technology, are not what one would call environment friendly. Indeed, India's much-touted mobile revolution has come on the back of diesel generators. Tens of thousands of gensets can be found across the country powering cellphone towers.
So what is the solution? Patel says better connectivity means data centres do not need to be in cities, and thanks to technology, could be managed by very few people. So they could be located near dairy farms and run on excrement. But that is not a revolutionary technology in India, where village people still use cowdung cakes as domestic fuel. Patel says cowdung can be processed in inexpensive digesters to produce methane, which can be burned to create power.
And for that matter what about solar technology? India's tryst with solar energy has been a start-stop affair so far. But at least the mobile communications industry can take the lead here. Mobile towers can easily have solar cells mounted on top of them, which may not completely do away with the need for diesel generators, but could definitely cut down on the use of polluting fuel. Another idea is developing gadgets that run on solar power. A case in point: Samsung showcased a solar-powered phone in 2009 - the Solar Guru E1107. Sadly, it seems to have been a one-off case.
Ramesh does have a point. The IT industry and IT users, which include people reading this column, should take the lead. Thanks to advances in technology, devices today are more energy-efficient than their predecessors. But we also use more of them - more computers, more phones and more tablets.
At the back end, our rising appetite has led to more servers and more data centres. In fact, as Patel argues, better use of IT can lead to gains in energy efficiency. Data centres can be better managed along with being better located. Why should a data centre be located in a concrete block in Navi-Mumbai, when it could be located at a much cooler Panchgani? Do people really care where their data is stored as long as they can access it whenever and wherever they want?
And each one of us can also do his bit. This does not mean fewer videos on YouTube or shorter chats on cellphones. It means buying more environment-friendly hardware and better power management (switching off power or putting gadgets in sleep mode). It also means instead of long speeches at environment summits, the IT industry should become a leader in alternative energy solutions.
Kushan Mitra
India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says he closes his ears every time leaders from the IT industry talk green. And if any of you have ever visited a data centre where thousands of computer servers are kept in rooms chilled at 18 to 20 degrees Celsius, you get an idea about the kind of energy consumption I am talking about.
To make matters worse, due to erratic electricity supply, most data centres and IT offices in India are powered by diesel generators, which, despite advances in technology, are not what one would call environment friendly. Indeed, India's much-touted mobile revolution has come on the back of diesel generators. Tens of thousands of gensets can be found across the country powering cellphone towers.
So what is the solution? Patel says better connectivity means data centres do not need to be in cities, and thanks to technology, could be managed by very few people. So they could be located near dairy farms and run on excrement. But that is not a revolutionary technology in India, where village people still use cowdung cakes as domestic fuel. Patel says cowdung can be processed in inexpensive digesters to produce methane, which can be burned to create power.
And for that matter what about solar technology? India's tryst with solar energy has been a start-stop affair so far. But at least the mobile communications industry can take the lead here. Mobile towers can easily have solar cells mounted on top of them, which may not completely do away with the need for diesel generators, but could definitely cut down on the use of polluting fuel. Another idea is developing gadgets that run on solar power. A case in point: Samsung showcased a solar-powered phone in 2009 - the Solar Guru E1107. Sadly, it seems to have been a one-off case.
Ramesh does have a point. The IT industry and IT users, which include people reading this column, should take the lead. Thanks to advances in technology, devices today are more energy-efficient than their predecessors. But we also use more of them - more computers, more phones and more tablets.
At the back end, our rising appetite has led to more servers and more data centres. In fact, as Patel argues, better use of IT can lead to gains in energy efficiency. Data centres can be better managed along with being better located. Why should a data centre be located in a concrete block in Navi-Mumbai, when it could be located at a much cooler Panchgani? Do people really care where their data is stored as long as they can access it whenever and wherever they want?
And each one of us can also do his bit. This does not mean fewer videos on YouTube or shorter chats on cellphones. It means buying more environment-friendly hardware and better power management (switching off power or putting gadgets in sleep mode). It also means instead of long speeches at environment summits, the IT industry should become a leader in alternative energy solutions.
