Imagining a world without all our modern-day online services is challenging. With the internet connecting us and helping manage countless aspects of our modern lives, suddenly losing these services would throw us into chaos.
Although much is said about the benefits of our connected lifestyles, including how it analyzes incredible volumes of data and improves industry practices and everyday life, little is mentioned about the ramifications. In particular, the cost to the environment is often glossed over.
In reality, running even a simple web server, such as a site with a guide to live casinos online, has a measurable environmental cost. Running the entire internet? Significantly more so. This cost is compounded by the advent of AI models and other technologies that require extensive processing power.
Below, we’ll examine this cost and what it actually takes to keep the world online. We’ll also examine how this impacts the environment and the long-term effects that our always connected lifestyle has on the planet.
Power
The most significant effect the internet has on the planet is the extensive power required to keep it online. Comprising data centers, network devices, and end-user devices, keeping the internet online requires an immense amount of power.
While it is impossible to accurately measure the precise amount of power this requires, some studies have attempted to provide a respectable estimate. A 2020 study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory examined the electricity usage of US data centers alone and found that these data centers consumed almost 73 billion kilowatt-hours of power in 2020 alone.
To put that into perspective, internet infrastructure consumes almost 3% of global power—an amount similar to that used by the aviation industry. And this number is estimated to have increased significantly since the advent of LLMs (large language models) in late 2022.
ChatGPT, one of the most popular AI platforms, is estimated to use approximately 2.9 watt-hours of energy per user prompt. With hundreds of millions of prompts submitted daily, the OpenAI product uses almost 621.4 megawatt-hours of power each day or 226.8 gigawatt-hours per year—enough to power all of Finland for a day.
Greenhouse Gases
Aside from power consumption, the ICT (information and communications technology) sector also contributes a notable amount to global greenhouse gases each year. Another study conducted in 2020 attempted to measure this contribution to GHG (greenhouse gases) and found that almost 3.7% of global GHGs can be traced back to the ICT industry. This figure, like the industry’s power consumption, is estimated to have risen significantly with the advent of resource-intensive technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Water Consumption
In addition to requiring power, the data centers that keep the internet online consume excessive quantities of water. This water is used to run cooling systems that keep core hardware cool and operating at peak performance.
A 2022 report by NPR revealed that, on average, a typical data center uses around 300,000 gallons (or 1.135 million litres) of water per day to run cooling systems. This amount, enough to provide water to around 100,000 homes, is multiplied exponentially when taking into account the numerous data centers located internationally.
According to the United Nations, 50% of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas by 2025. With data centers prevalent in many of these regions and consuming huge quantities of water, there is a growing concern over the sustainability of these cooling systems.
E-Waste
Another increasingly prevalent concern over the impact of the internet is the large amount of e-waste produced by the ITC industry. This waste occurs each time hardware fails or is replaced due to upgraded equipment becoming available and is disposed of—often incorrectly.
This hardware contains electronic waste that is often made of hazardous materials such as silicon. If incorrectly disposed of, this material can cause pollution in the area and lead to other issues.
Mitigation Steps
With the above factors having a measurable cost on the environment, many companies in the ITC industry have attempted to address them. They have done so largely due to social pressures on the industry and, in some cases, due to legislative intervention to minimize these effects.
Among these initiatives are drives to create more energy-efficient technologies requiring less power. Technologies like server virtualization, compatibility with renewable energy sources, and more streamlined cooling systems have made significant strides in this endeavour but still fall short of what is required to be entirely sustainable in the future.
Another attempt to mitigate these effects is to develop more sustainable hardware that will last longer, optimize software applications so that they require less physical resources and processing power, and promote responsible resource consumption among consumers and end users.
The Environmental Cost of Staying Connected
The reality of what the internet costs in terms of its environmental impact is often overlooked in the pursuit of new technological innovations that make staying connected and living a digital lifestyle easier. However, these costs can quickly begin to outweigh the benefits they provide.
Steps to mitigate these effects offer hope that the internet’s impact on the planet will lessen in the future. However, with internet usage ramping up due to the influx of AI engines and more people being connected daily, those taking these steps will also need to ramp up their efforts to make a marked difference.
