Keeping the Intertubes Alive
Aug. 26th, 2013 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorAll to often, people like to toss out the tired trope about how much energy a single Google search consumes. I say it's tired simply because the same tossers never seem to consider what energy uses a single Google search avoids. Seriously, think of a hard question to answer simply, like, say, one I remembered from my Coast Guard testing for Master's certification. On a passenger vessel, a fire hose must be . . . what? Of a certain diameter? Made of a certain material? Affixed with approved connectors? Something else?
If you want to legally and safely operate a passenger vessel, these are questions you may not be able to answer yourself off the top of your captain's cap, but that you are legally required to be able to answer. That's why owners must have in their possession the appropriate copies of the appropriate Code of Federal Regulations regulating their specific niche in the industry. License applicants are tested by a simple open-book test, the book opened in question of course being the CFRs. Or, rather, "books" in question. Title 46 spans several volumes.
Ah, but I am losing my initial thread. Back on topic. Let's say you wanted to get a boat running, but needed to answer that question above. Let's further say you were being asked not as an operator, but as a favor to a friend. How would you answer it? You could hop on the bus/in the car and head down to the library. Only larger libraries carry the CFRs, so this might be a long trip. You would do some research, where you would probably learn that the answer is "something else"; fire hoses must be attached. (The only exception; spare hoses carried in storage. Having an un-hosed monitor station on a passenger boat, though, is very, very bad.)
Quick question: if answering that question were possible with the internets, how much energy would be avoided in bus/car transport? Answer: probably lots.
Someone has tried to answer this, someone named "barath" over at Controposition. He notes: "A key part of understanding the energy use of the Internet is that its embodied energy, or emergy, is important to include." In his conclusions, he notes that roughly half of the studies ignore this. (His quick calculation suggests the embodied energy is about equivalent to the wall socket input over the life of the hardware.)
It gets better, though. Sure, energy is important. A trip to the library is probably more energy-intensive an endeavor than a Google-y. But what inputs are required to get this hardware built? In other words, what are the internet's material dependencies?
Prepare to have your mind blown. Luckily there's a magnifier for this image. A lot of stuff goes into your computer, Cupcake, and a lot of that stuff comes from some unstable areas.
Something to consider.
If you want to legally and safely operate a passenger vessel, these are questions you may not be able to answer yourself off the top of your captain's cap, but that you are legally required to be able to answer. That's why owners must have in their possession the appropriate copies of the appropriate Code of Federal Regulations regulating their specific niche in the industry. License applicants are tested by a simple open-book test, the book opened in question of course being the CFRs. Or, rather, "books" in question. Title 46 spans several volumes.
Ah, but I am losing my initial thread. Back on topic. Let's say you wanted to get a boat running, but needed to answer that question above. Let's further say you were being asked not as an operator, but as a favor to a friend. How would you answer it? You could hop on the bus/in the car and head down to the library. Only larger libraries carry the CFRs, so this might be a long trip. You would do some research, where you would probably learn that the answer is "something else"; fire hoses must be attached. (The only exception; spare hoses carried in storage. Having an un-hosed monitor station on a passenger boat, though, is very, very bad.)
Quick question: if answering that question were possible with the internets, how much energy would be avoided in bus/car transport? Answer: probably lots.
Someone has tried to answer this, someone named "barath" over at Controposition. He notes: "A key part of understanding the energy use of the Internet is that its embodied energy, or emergy, is important to include." In his conclusions, he notes that roughly half of the studies ignore this. (His quick calculation suggests the embodied energy is about equivalent to the wall socket input over the life of the hardware.)
It gets better, though. Sure, energy is important. A trip to the library is probably more energy-intensive an endeavor than a Google-y. But what inputs are required to get this hardware built? In other words, what are the internet's material dependencies?
Prepare to have your mind blown. Luckily there's a magnifier for this image. A lot of stuff goes into your computer, Cupcake, and a lot of that stuff comes from some unstable areas.
Something to consider.