Transcript Green ICT – internet opportunities

ICT networks assisting green initiatives
Climate change
My starting point
Human activities are largely responsible for the rise in GHG
Very significant climate change is happening
The climate change will have large negative effects on human life
Rapid Increase in the Greenhouse Gas CO2
Source: David
JC MacKay, Era Began
Since
Industrial
Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (2009)
388 ppm in 2010
Medieval
Warm
Period
Little
Ice Age
290 ppm in 1900
Arctic Summer Ice Melting
Accelerating Relative to IPCC 2007 Predictions
Source: www.copenhagendiagnosis.org
ICT in general . . . .
ICT – part of the problem
It has been estimated† that ICT contributes a similar
amount of CO2 emissions to that from the entire aviation
industry – 2% in 2007 with a projection of rising to 3% by
2020
A server rack currently consumes up to 30KW and the rack
density is still rising
Around half of the power requirements in today’s data
centres is used for cooling
Gartner says more than 30% of ICT energy use is generated
by PCs and associated peripherals
† Gartner report April 2007
Data centres are big users of electricity
NSA plan to build the data center, which could consume as
much power as all the homes in Salt Lake City.
Data centres are big users of electricity…
In the UK the Met data center used for
climate modeling and weather forecasting
is the singe biggest CO2 emitter in the UK.
ISPs target cloud services for growth
Mid-sized ISPs address cloud opportunity with virtualisation
investment
By Rob O'Neill, Auckland | Wednesday, 10 February, 2010
…Iconz to invest in 250 racks of capacity at its Airedale St,
Auckland premises…
The new Iconz data centre will consume
as much power as 15,000 homes.
… how secure is Auckland’s power supply?
Lowering the carbon footprint of ICT
Virtualisation
Greatly lowers server numbers
Thin servers
Lower power (and cooling requirements)
Low power PCs through improved design e.g. intelligent sleeping
Smart cooling of computers
Strategic location of data centres
Close to (non-fossil fuel) power sources
Sited to lower cooling energy use
Cloud computing
Efficient use of resources
…..
in a typical data centre up to 30% of servers are not in use at
all, but they are powered up
ICT services as part of the solution
– enabling energy efficiencies
Travel substitution
Video and audio conferencing
Teleworking
Smart grids
Smart devices communicating with smart grids
Smart logistics
Improved scheduling
The management of the flow of goods
RFID tracking
Smart buildings
It has been estimated that application of ICT can lead to
a 5-fold greater decrease in green house gas emissions
than its own carbon footprint – Smart 2020 Report
Implementation of smart grids
Low public knowledge
Current efforts benefit the supplier more than the
customer
Is Government leadership the way forward?
Not Internet related but involves networks
Specifically networks. . . .
The Carbon Footprint of Networks and the Internet
Networks themselves consume significant amounts of
power…but the move from electrons to photons is
lowering the impact.
Unnecessary duplication can be avoided through
sharing base infrastructure.
Industry responses such as the Greentouch Initiative
will assist in lowering network energy consumption.
InternetNZ
Action?
Is there anything InternetNZ should/could do to support
lowering network energy requirements?
Networks as part of the solution
Some potential avenues for lowering the carbon load
Appropriate location of data centres
Travel substitution
Teleworking
Green Commerce
e.g. Marry up the electricity and computer network
industries.
One possible reward system is to provide homeowners with
free fiber to the home if they agree to pay a premium on
their energy consumption which will in turn encourage
them to reduce their energy use.
Many potential green initiatives are only
possible with abundant cheap bandwidth
The myth of scarcity of bandwidth
survives and needs to be addressed
Transport cost per gigabyte
1990
$10,000
1995
$500
2000
$10
2005
$1
2010
$0.1
Location of Data Centres
About 30% of NZ electricity is generated using non
renewable resources and this proportion has increased in
recent years – it is important to lower demand.
Close to electricity generation (through renewable resources)
Lower transmission losses
Location to facilitate natural cooling
Must have very reliable networks
Replacing electricity transmission lines with optical networks!
Perhaps the best location for data centres in New Zealand
Travel substitution
Video and audio conferencing has had a very long
gestation period!
Telephone audio conferencing is now simple and just
works – the telcos delivered!
Video conferencing has turned out to be more difficult
to commodify
Video conferencing
ISDN – an old teleco model with very high pricing
One to one PC conferencing
Skype works
There are good HD capable models finally emerging
Mirial
EVO
Conference XP
….. but they still cause troubles even for techies
MCU bridges are getting there
Video conferencing . . .
Special room requirements – lighting and acoustics
Booking issues arise
Lack of effective standards for end use controls
Cost of transmission has continued to be a perceived
problem
Telepresence – a long way to go
Optiportal technology – a specialist community
initiative that works
How to make conferencing really
work – what needs fixing?
Cost of transmission must become, and be seen to be,
insignificant.
End user equipment and software must be simple to operate and
robust
Desktop video conferencing is still seen as a bit of a black art –
standards and simplification are necessary – shouldn’t require a
techie
Off high-speed networks connections are poor – aDSL is not
adequate because of the asymmetry. Encourage symmetric
connectivity
Advanced Video Collaboration Centre
The AVCC is a National non-profit centre dedicated to facilitating,
enhancing and encouraging the use of video collaboration technologies
across New Zealand's Universities and Crown Research Institutes.
Is there an opportunity to make the AVCC services more widely available?
InternetNZ
action
Support the AVCC to provide practical assistance to a wider
audience for video conferencing?
Teleworking
Has not been widely adopted
Particular industries (e.g. journalism) are well represented
Problems of isolation regardless of communication facilities
Using telework centres, rather than the individual home, is
seen as an answer for some
Are incentives needed to promote more teleworking?
InternetNZ
action
Sponsor a workshop to explore promotion of teleworking?
Location of data centres
Why does the ICT industry locate data centres in major cities?
– are there good reasons?
If not what can InternetNZ do to encourage more appropriate
locations?
InternetNZ
action
A publicity campaign?
Green Commerce opportunities
Would it be appropriate for InternetNZ to investigate/promote
green commerce mechanisms?
InternetNZ
action
Research opportunities?
What might the InternetNZ organisation itself do?
Lead by example
– could InternetNZ reply on cloud computing for (some of) its services?
– are there more opportunities to use of ‘virtual’ meetings?
– are there teleworking possibilities?
General messages that need more emphasis
Low cost networking – continue to explode the myth
that high speed communications are necessarily
expensive.
Data networks should be more reliable than electricity
networks