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| .01% of the world's energy consumption | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 10 2011, 11:23 AM (300 Views) | |
| Luke's Dad | Sep 10 2011, 11:23 AM Post #1 |
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Emperor Pengin
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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 | Sep 10 2011, 11:26 AM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Considering Google's contribution to world productivity (compared to, say, Arlington's contribution), what's your point? |
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| Luke's Dad | Sep 10 2011, 01:12 PM Post #3 |
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Emperor Pengin
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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 | Sep 10 2011, 01:32 PM Post #4 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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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. |
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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 | Sep 10 2011, 06:24 PM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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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 | Sep 11 2011, 01:38 AM Post #6 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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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 | Sep 11 2011, 01:45 AM Post #7 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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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"
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| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Axtremus | Sep 11 2011, 02:00 AM Post #8 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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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.
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| Jolly | Sep 11 2011, 03:45 AM Post #9 |
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Geaux Tigers!
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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 | Sep 11 2011, 05:15 AM Post #10 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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Ax, you really need to get laid. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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