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There have been a number of articles floating round my Twitter feed this morning that got me thinking about a question I have no real way of answering.
It’s mainly to do with the possible environmental impact of the so-called “internet of things” (IoT).
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This was the Telegraph article, tweeted by @markpower that got me thinking about it all.
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Eight UK schools to take part in ‘Internet of Things’ pilot
The idea of the Internet of Things is to enable a world where devices, data and places are connected with applications and people over th… -
If you’re not familiar with the internet of things have a look at this (rather enthusiastic) explainer video…
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This graphic from the BBC which @jonnycrook tweeted today shows how network enabled devices might shape cities in the not-too-distant future.
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The city of 2050
Have you ever wondered where you or your children may be living in 2050? Experts predict that by then three quarters of the world’s popul… -
One of the benefits often claimed for a world where devices are constantly monitoring their environment and exchanging data is that it will increase energy efficiency. According to the report mentioned in the article below, this could be to the tune of 9 billion tons of carbon emissions. (The report itself is based on work funded by AT&T who probably have an interest in exploiting the technology).
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New Report Predicts the “Internet of Things” Could Offset 9 Billion Tons of Carbon Emissions
A new report shows that global greenhouse emissions could be reduced by 9 billion tons – almost a fifth – over the coming decade thanks t… -
See also…
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How the Internet of things could make the world safer and greener
We’re currently in the early stages of the Internet of Things, the much-buzzed-about phenomenon when all objects in the world will be equ… -
Which all sounds lovely, but a number of people tweeted this article from the Guardian today. While not directly about IoT it is a reminder about a cost of using technology that can remain hidden from end users.
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Constant access to wireless networks has an environmental cost
There is a familiarity and comfort in our almost-everywhere connection to always-on communications networks and to the ever-increasing ar… -
There was also a report a while ago about the carbon footprint of email and spam in particular (funded in part by McAfee who sell products to manage spam).
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The point is that transferring data has an environmental cost. It may not be expensive per “unit” but with such great volumes being moved back an forth the total soon mounts up to something really significant.Now imagine if the many billions of sensors and other devices that IoT promises are talking to each other and add that to all the current data traffic going around the globe.And what will actually happen to all that data? Keeping it all on servers will require large amounts of power but how much of it will be used well? As my colleague Steve pointed out:“Big data” is all well and good but we
don’t have a good record of using even small data. So more might not be better?
Overload & ignore.”That’s not to say that it’s impossible to manage large amounts of data successfully and keep a lid on power requirements as this Jisc-funded project at Cardiff University from the Green ICT programme shows. -
Planet filestore : JISCThis project aims to investigate the environmental savings (anticipated to be from power, space and cooling) to be derived from dynamical…
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The projects main findings were that by putting data that needed accessing less frequently in storage that was backed up less frequently and didn’t require immediate access, energy usage could be reduced:“In Cardiff University’s environment, 93% of files were not modified more than 60 days after theywere first created. This means that tiered storage would benefit our environment significantly, withan 82% energy saving.”
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So the big question is whether there would be a net carbon saving as a result of a working internet of things or would the gains be wiped out by the energy use of the infrastructure and the need to keep the data generated somewhere.I don’t know, I’m just asking the question.Now, was there another reason why increasing the amount of data available about our behaviour might be a problem…Oh yes…
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