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.01% of the world's energy consumption
Topic Started: Sep 10 2011, 11:23 AM (300 Views)
Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/09/google-consumes-enough-energy-to-power-arlington-for-a-year/

The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Considering Google's contribution to world productivity (compared to, say, Arlington's contribution), what's your point?
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
Why do I have to have a point to post something that I find interesting. And the fact that one company uses .01% of the world's energy is certainly interesting.

Why so defensive?
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Requires 7kWh to download 1 GB; includes your and the server's energy consumption. That's about enough to power a color TV for seven days, for which you have to burn 5 and a half pounds of coal, for a cost of about $0.70.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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Axtremus
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Red Rice
Sep 10 2011, 01:32 PM
Requires 7kWh to download 1 GB; includes your and the server's energy consumption. That's about enough to power a color TV for seven days, for which you have to burn 5 and a half pounds of coal, for a cost of about $0.70.
Interesting ... don't see that in the article Luke's Dad links to; may I ask where you get that data point from?

(I assume that references a 1 GB download from one of Google's services?)

Comparing the 7 kWh per 1 GB data transfer under different circumstances ...

1. In my own local area network, running my own server, "downloading" 1 GB takes a few seconds. With my server, client, and intermediate routers/switches all dissipating well under 200 Watts total ... that's on the order of half a kW-seconds for a 1 GB "download."

2. For across-town transfer (e.g., home to office), my data would have to go through multiple hops, let's conservatively say 10 intermediate routers, each dissipating 1 kW ... then a minute of data transfer can potentially take up a few kWh's of energy (before amortizing it over however many transfers the system is handling simultaneously).

3. More traditionally, I can also try to send "1 GB" of data using snail mail (e.g., USPS mail truck or bike messenger), dash-dot it using telegraph, or sending it over smoke signal or blinking flash lights ... all these options obviously take more than 7 kWh to transfer 1 GB of data.

The most energy efficient method among the "old ways" of transferring 1 GB "across town" that I can think of is, perhaps, to tie a really light-weight micro-SD flash drive to a pigeon flying across town. This 1968 paper estimates that a pigeon uses about 10 W of power to fly horizontally at 10 meters/second speed (fairly typical speed for a pigeon), not counting take-off and touch-down. So even a 10-mile across-town flight would take a pigeon about 16 kWh to pull off -- double RedRice's 7 kWh figure.
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Klaus
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Red Rice
Sep 10 2011, 01:32 PM
Requires 7kWh to download 1 GB; includes your and the server's energy consumption. That's about enough to power a color TV for seven days, for which you have to burn 5 and a half pounds of coal, for a cost of about $0.70.
These figures sound wrong. A modern server can easily serve 10GB per second. Let's say it consumes 400W, then a GB requires about 40 watt seconds. Let's say the rest of the infrastructure consumes 10x that figure, and we are still several orders of magnitude from 7kWh.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Klaus
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Axtremus
Sep 10 2011, 06:24 PM
The most energy efficient method among the "old ways" of transferring 1 GB "across town" that I can think of is, perhaps, to tie a really light-weight micro-SD flash drive to a pigeon flying across town. This 1968 paper estimates that a pigeon uses about 10 W of power to fly horizontally at 10 meters/second speed (fairly typical speed for a pigeon), not counting take-off and touch-down. So even a 10-mile across-town flight would take a pigeon about 16 kWh to pull off -- double RedRice's 7 kWh figure.
Well, take a truck full of 1TB harddrives. A harddrive weights about 100g, which means that 10 tons of harddrives give you a capacity of about 10 Million TB. For 10 miles the truck would maybe need around 50kWh, which means that we need only 5 milliWh per TB or 0.005 mWh per GB ;)

When I studied, my network professor used to say "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of DVDs" :lol2:
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Klaus
Sep 11 2011, 01:45 AM
Axtremus
Sep 10 2011, 06:24 PM
The most energy efficient method among the "old ways" of transferring 1 GB "across town" that I can think of is, perhaps, to tie a really light-weight micro-SD flash drive to a pigeon flying across town. This 1968 paper estimates that a pigeon uses about 10 W of power to fly horizontally at 10 meters/second speed (fairly typical speed for a pigeon), not counting take-off and touch-down. So even a 10-mile across-town flight would take a pigeon about 16 kWh to pull off -- double RedRice's 7 kWh figure.
Well, take a truck full of 1TB harddrives. A harddrive weights about 100g, which means that 10 tons of harddrives give you a capacity of about 10 Million TB. For 10 miles the truck would maybe need around 50kWh, which means that we need only 5 milliWh per TB or 0.005 mWh per GB ;)

When I studied, my network professor used to say "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of DVDs" :lol2:
I did not post it, but that's the "truck full of hard drives" analogy that crossed my mind when IT was asking whether he should send a hard drive as opposed to uploading 70 GB and have his intended recipient download 70 GB. :)

The truck wins when you need to transfer large enough amount of data ... but for for "1 GB," the pigeon still wins. :D
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Without electricity, they're all useless.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Ax, you really need to get laid.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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