The carbon footprint of streaming video is higher than you report (Streaming’s dirty secret: how viewing Netflix top 10 creates vast quantity of CO2, 29 October). In the article, computer scientist Daniel Schien says streaming has a smaller carbon footprint than “muesli with milk”, implicitly comparing the carbon footprint of information and communication technologies to that of agriculture.
But ICT’s electricity consumption makes a significant and rising contribution to global warming. Some IT engineers calculate its carbon footprint at 3.3% to 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions – well over that of the airline industry. That’s because streaming relies on an infrastructure of data centres, networks and devices that is over-engineered to anticipate future use and spur consumer demand. As customers worldwide get hooked on data-intensive streaming and calculation-intensive blockchain and AI, this infrastructure will expand further.
Schien mentions that data centres and networks improve in efficiency every year. Many respected ICT engineers argue that efficiency is outstripped by fast-rising demand. Moreover, these improvements won’t last for ever. Efficiency relies on Moore’s law, whereby the number of transistors on a circuit doubles by a factor of 1.4 with each generation. Moore’s law is coming to an end, because the most commonly used CMOS transistors have been shrunk to the point where they begin to leak electrons. New transistor technologies will not be ready for production for years.
As Schien says, devices are responsible for rising electricity consumption. We consumers can curb the rise by avoiding 4K TVs and keeping our phones for as long as possible. But the more we heed the siren songs of high-definition streaming video and blockchain, the more the infrastructure will expand, and with it ICT’s carbon footprint.
Laura U Marks
Principal investigator, Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
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