30 nuclear power plants are wasted 90% of their electricity.

Absrtact: Facebook's standby generators prevent outages when they are cut off. 24x7 Internet Web server. A data center loaded with many servers. 30 nuclear power plants can only be wasted 90% of their electricity. In order to allow the global Internet users 24 hours to enjoy the net

The "Facebook" Company's standby generator, which prevents outages when the power is off.

24x7 Internet Web server.

A data center loaded with many servers.

30 nuclear power plants are wasted 90% of their electricity.

In order to allow Internet users 24 hours to access the Internet, major Internet companies have been providing round-the-clock service. However, the large Web site's servers because of long-term operation, the power consumption is staggering. More than a year of U.S. media research has found that the world's major websites only data center power, the equivalent of 30 nuclear power plants, it is distressing that 90% of the power consumption is wasted.

Power consumption in data center Super Medium-sized Town

More than a year of research by the New York Times reporter has shown that there is a staggering power consumption in several internet companies and their data centers in the United States. Regardless of user needs, the major web site data centers are operating 24x7. It is estimated that the global Internet Data Center power may reach 30 billion watts, equivalent to 30 nuclear power plant power.

Data center Architect Gross says a data center uses more power than a medium-sized town in the United States. Gross has helped hundreds of websites design data centers. Google's global data center has a power of 300 million watts, a figure more than 30,000 households in the United States.

Behind the huge power consumption, is incredibly wasteful. The famous McKinsey consultancy disclosed that the power consumption of data centers was only 6%~12% used for Web site computing, while the rest was needlessly consumed while maintaining the server's working status. With the rapid development of the Internet, this power consumption has increased in recent years.

IT industry has been a regulatory dead end

The big shopping site Amazon has at least 8 major data centers in the Virginia State. Local environmental authorities found that Amazon, without filing with the authorities, illegally used large diesel generators, affecting the local air quality, was sentenced to 24 violations, a fine of nearly 300,000 U.S. dollars.

Insiders said: "This is the dirty secret of the IT world, no one thought the first to come out to apologize." If we were a manufacturing company, not an internet company, we would have been kicked out by regulators for the incredible power consumption. ”

For security reasons, the location of the major web site data centers is rarely disclosed and the power consumption is considered confidential. In fact, no government agency in the United States has the authority to track the power consumption of major websites, and even the federal government's own data center has not been publicly available.

Taking care of user habits leads to power consumption

Capcho, vice president of the research company, points out that ordinary users take the site for granted and expect to be able to search for any information at any time, which is the root of the problem.

Yahoo's operations director at Santa Clara's data center, Dylan, said to reporters, "there are tens of thousands of users of e-mail information, although a lot of information is electronic waste, but users are generally unwilling to delete this information, they want to permanently save these messages and attachments, so we have to use more and more servers. ”

"If you tell a net friend that he can't download the video anytime in 24 hours, he's going to be mad at you because he sees it as a natural human right," said Bruce, a vice president at a data analysis company. ”

Cloud technology can save electricity but encounter resistance

Industry experts believe that the use of existing cloud technology, you can set up a large computing center, to include all the major sites of data centers, not only to ensure that the site runs, but also the most important is limited to reduce power consumption. But the reality is that most websites are not comfortable with cloud computing, and they prefer to use their own data centers for business reasons.

Many analysts warn that if internet companies do not change their existing power-use strategies, they will be waiting for another dotcom bubble. Energy analyst Mark Bramfith said: "Their development strategy is not sustainable, they are destroying the cornerstone of Internet development." ”

Data link

Global Internet power hundreds of millions of watts

How much electricity does the internet occupy? Varas of the University of California, Berkeley, Justin and the International Academy of Computer Science estimates an approximate value.

Combined with previously published research, the two academics estimate that there are now around 750 million laptops, 1 billion smartphones and 100 million servers worldwide. Based on these data, they calculated the electrical energy consumed by manufacturing the devices (4.5 billion KJ and 1 billion kj for a laptop and smartphone), the electricity consumed by these devices, the average life of the equipment, the base station, the cloud storage device and the Wi-Fi route. After calculation, they believe that the Internet to operate normally, its power in the range of 1700~3070 billion watts.