Increasing energy usage by datacentres is a concerning issue, as is the associated environmental cost (Datacentres using 6% of electricity supply in UK and US, research says, 13 May).
Datacentres use up huge and rapidly increasing amounts of electricity, and data storage is responsible for more carbon emissions than the commercial airline industry. This is to say nothing of the contribution to land and water use, e-waste, supply chain issues, refrigerant gas leaks etc.
However, we as individuals do have some power to reduce this problem. While we have been led to believe that storing photos and files on our phones and other devices is (or should be) cost-free, this is the actual cost. By exercising responsible data management and deleting what we no longer use or need, we can help to ease the demand for data storage and the related impacts on our environment.
Reducing data clutter also means our devices run more smoothly and last longer, and it takes less time to find the information we need.
Gill Davidson
UK coordinator, World Cleanup Day and Digital Cleanup Day
I may be being naive here but, as I understand it, datacentres produce substantial amounts of “waste” heat (Google developers significantly misstate carbon emissions of proposed UK datacentres, 9 May). In the context of net zero, we cannot afford to entertain the notion of waste heat.
In this particular case, the heat is of a relatively high grade/temperature that could be repurposed for district heating, agricultural greenhouses, hot water, etc. This would strongly influence the carbon budget and seems to me an easy win. Why, then, is it not mandated that datacentres be located closer to where they can be put to such uses?
Robert Harrison
Sheffield
Leave a comment