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

Since Industrial Era Began

Little Ice Age

Medieval Warm Period

388 ppm in 2010

Source: David JC MacKay, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air (2009)

290 ppm in 1900

Arctic Summer Ice MeltingAccelerating 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

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.

Data centres are big users of electricity…

ISPs target cloud services for growthMid-sized ISPs address cloud opportunity with virtualisation investmentBy 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

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

ICT services as part of the solution – enabling energy efficiencies

Travel substitutionVideo and audio conferencing

Teleworking

Smart gridsSmart devices communicating with smart grids

Smart logisticsImproved schedulingThe management of the flow of goodsRFID tracking

Smart buildings

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.

Is there anything InternetNZ should/could do to support lowering network energy requirements?

Is there anything InternetNZ should/could do to support lowering network energy requirements?

InternetNZAction?

Networks as part of the solution

Some potential avenues for lowering the carbon load

Appropriate location of data centresTravel substitutionTeleworkingGreen Commercee.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

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

Close to electricity generation (through renewable resources)

Lower transmission losses

Location to facilitate natural cooling

Replacing electricity transmission lines with optical networks!

Must have very reliable networks

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.

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 conferencingISDN – an old teleco model with very high pricing

One to one PC conferencing Skype works

There are good HD capable models finally emerging

MirialEVOConference 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

Support the AVCC to provide practical assistance to a wider audience for video conferencing?

Support the AVCC to provide practical assistance to a wider audience for video conferencing?

Advanced Video Collaboration Centre

InternetNZaction

Is there an opportunity to make the AVCC services more widely available?

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.

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?

Sponsor a workshop to explore promotion of teleworking?Sponsor a workshop to explore promotion of teleworking?

InternetNZaction

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?

A publicity campaign?A publicity campaign?InternetNZ action

Green Commerce opportunities

Would it be appropriate for InternetNZ to investigate/promote green commerce mechanisms?

Research opportunities?Research opportunities?InternetNZ action

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