There is an energy crisis slowly creeping up on us. We go about our daily business enjoying the benefits of computer advances while not realizing that massive amounts of energy are being consumed.
Mobile phones are designed with very little hard storage. Reliance on cloud services is increasing at a rapid pace. Many developing countries do not enjoy continuous energy supplies. When the electricity goes off so does cloud storage. In advanced countries aluminium producers were blamed for eating up too much power, now everyone is responsible.
A new study, The Power of Wireless Cloud, clearly shows that the continuing use of electricity is not sustainable. Energy use by cloud services will be equivalent to 4.9 million cars over the period 2012-2015. This is known by comparing energy from petrol to power station input.
It is not just the cloud. Wi-Fi will use more power than anything else. Computing networks are not "clean". Many do not consider that most electricity is still being produced with dirty energy inputs. Even nuclear is dirty - it contaminates.
Society
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