The information and communications industry (ICT) has recently consumed enormous amounts of energy. Along with this, carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere produced by this industry are also growing. While emissions from cars, for example, can be easily seen, emissions from the IT sector are not visible to anyone.

Currently, this sector accounts for about 2% of all global CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. It is in this regard that most companies in the ICT industry are reviewing their policies, trying in every possible way to reduce the amount of energy consumed and, accordingly, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, the BBC reports.

“The industry has really been changing lately,” says AMD Vice President Randy Allen. It is worth noting here that for a long time the main goal of companies in the information and communication sector was to increase labor productivity. However, as production capacity increases, the amount of energy consumed inexorably increases. And now server centers, which are the basis of any computer network, are already operating at their maximum capabilities, assures Hewlett Packard representative Jerome Ribulon. “Simply put, they just don’t have enough energy,” he adds. It is in this regard that HP has already reduced the number of information centers to 6, while 3 years ago the company had about 85 such centers around the world.

Other computer and hardware manufacturers are also keeping up with Hewlett Packard: for example, Google, Dell, the US Environmental Protection Agency, IBM and Lenovo last year launched a new project called the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, the main goal of which is to increase energy efficiency personal computers and servers. Currently, in addition to the above companies, about 40 more companies and organizations are participating in this project. It is expected that the new initiative will be completed by 2010. will increase the efficiency of power supplies for conventional PCs up to 90%, and for servers - up to 92%. This, according to experts, will reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere by 54 million tons per year, which will save up to $55 billion on electricity.

True, not all analysts have such an optimistic view of this problem. For example, the head of the Forum for the Future, Peter Madden, is confident that the industry’s problem is not only that servers and computers consume huge amounts of energy. “If you calculate how much energy is spent on the production of one computer, it becomes clear that the current problem cannot be solved simply by reducing the amount of energy consumed by servers and regular PCs,” he notes. In his opinion, only more efficient use of outdated PCs and servers will help in this situation. “It is necessary to develop another system for recycling obsolete equipment. Only in this case will it be possible to talk about solving the existing problem,” the expert adds.

The IT industry will face an energy shortage