Do we need to worry about the carbon emissions from all these extra online conferencing we are doing these days? What is the best way to reduce our emissions from use of ICT? The energy group discussed these issues this week. Gareth did most of the research - he works with computers in his job and knows an awful lot about it. Also, Gareth and Nicola both did some tests on home equipment to see how much power was being used. Here are some of the things we learned. You can see the slides here.
Computers are more and more commonplace.
How many computers do you have in the room with your right now? Perhaps you are in your living room. Obviously there is one that you are reading this article on and at least one in the TV, and another in the remote for the TV. Do you have Alexa or a similar device? Do you have remote controlled LED lights? Perhaps you have a security camera on the front door? Do you have a digital watch? Perhaps you have a smart watch that monitors your heartbeat or how far you have walked today? All of these rely on computers of one kind or another. We have them, we use them, and increasingly we rely on them.
Carbon emissions come from making them, then from having them switched on, and then doing actual work.
It is often hard to get information on lifecycle carbon emissions for products. However, Nicola has a newish Mac Mini (bought last year) and Apple publish the lifecycle carbon emissions for their products so we have a clue about that one. Applying a 40% uplift factor to Apple's figures (as recommended by Mike Berners Lee in How Bad are Bananas), and assuming a lifetime of 3 years, the emissions from manufacture and delivery come to 130 g/day. It uses about 14 W when not doing very much, and up to 40 W when working really hard. So in a typical 8 hour day it might use 0.14 kWh - another 18g carbon. The manufacturing emissions far outweigh those from use, and this is not unusual.
