How Much Energy Does The Internet Use?

Hosted by: Hank Green

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[Ghost_Of_SAS]

Solve the heating problem and unemployment all at once. get people to manually fan servers 24/7 with huge pharaoh-like fans.

One more step towards Skynet.

[TheArzonite]

People commenting before they physically could even watch the video completely.

[malignor]

Concept - that heat can be reused to inefficiently generate small amounts of power.
Concept - use the building's own water system to control temperature; the people upstairs need cold water for toilets and sinks, so there are pipes taking that water up there. Have the "cold aisles" contain pillars wherein these cold water lines feed, making that air colder.
Concept - set up more data centers in Canada, where the exhaust can heat a room in our cold-ass winters.

[deepashtray]

This energy is just what the finished product uses. It doesn't cover the mining, processing, manufacturing, transporting... to put the servers in place and get them operational.

[Tjita]

The new thing here in Sweden (which is dense in district heating) is to use heat pumps to cool the datacenters and transfer the heat over to the district heating network. This is technology that is also starting to get utilized in big research facilities, such as MAX Lab in Lund, a synchrotron light accelerator.

[Acroanidd]

Working in a large datacenter I knew most of this stuff, however it is great to see it covered accurately for your average person.  We have a ton of virtualized servers running on very powerful blade servers which are more efficient than some of the bigger servers.  Unfortunately it's not always an option either due to software interacting poorly with virtual hardware / drivers.

One thing that isn't really mentioned though about keeping it cold in the datacenters is that if a single AC unit goes out the whole rooms temperature skyrockets making it dangerous for the hardware, so even though it's not bad for them to run hotter doesnt mean you want to turn the temp in the room up save some money.  Because even being without the AC for a portion of the room for a few minutes could be catastrophic.

All told, very good video.

[scazdog]

HANK! We watched SciShow at school yesterday, and I was like "OMG ITS HANK GREEN!" and everyone gave me weird looks... NONE HAVE SEEN YOU BEFORE!

AND THEN! Everyone started calling you "Fast Talker"... (I guess they are a little bit plain..)

[samuelblacke]

I think it's worth mentioning that having data centers in cold countries is a good idea, since you can use the outside air to cool the servers.

[brilliantbrunch]

"The Internet isn't going anywhere"

Then my Internet cuts out.

Great.

[Golph]

you should heat public swimming pools with server heat

[akakscase]

Another efficient way of cooling servers is to have a raised floor with the cool air blowing under it. Add a vent for each rack, and have an Air handler pulling air from the top of the rack, keep the rack doors closed unless you are servicing a server, and your cooling efficiency goes way up. It is move expensive at the start, but the energy savings in the long run are substantial. To keep the room itself cool you can add a few vents to the floor panels throughout the room.

[TreesPlease]

3:30 Heat is the enemy. They keep the machines that cold in part so that the machines last longer. Hardware virtualization is really good for cutting the number of servers, but in some situations excess servers are specifically available for handling peak times such as Christmas. That depends a lot on load balancing though. I'm not a genius, but I am a knowledgeable CS student that cares a lot about computers.

[SD-tjdh]

Water cool the data centres then make the hot water useful somewhere? Say maybe the central heating or hot water supply of an apartment block that sits above it?

[talsen]

I am the manager over a data center. The way they keep the servers at a low temperature is by pumping the air conditioning through a raised floor.

The floor people walk on is actually just a set of tiles that site on top of bars that are sticking up a few feet off the ground. Each tile is shaped to lock into place at each of their corners on these bars. This allows wires and air conditioning to run to each server under the floor. If you lift up one of these tiles cold air will blow through the hole.

This setup makes it easy to work and get to the servers without having to trip over wires, and it keeps the cold air and warm air separated since all the cold air blows up from the floor through the server or through vented tiles into the room above. In addition, it keeps the people working on the servers further from the ground so there is less risk of electric shock while working on a running machine.

[eyesofnova]

I work for a large data center company, they have very smart ways of cutting energy like allowing the data center to get as hot as 75 degrees before using the ac, using the plastic sheets like you see in your grocery store to better manage the cold and hot intakes of the servers, as well as shutting off the AC at night and sucking in cold air from outside. Really smart people working behind the scenes here.

[MarvRoberts]

Why isn't the heat produced from data centers used to, oh, I don't MORE ENERGY?!?!

[matthewwatt]

Thanks for making a video - Always wondered about this!

[NikorasuChan]

"Close the lights when you are not using it!..." - Mom

*Mom pulls out phone to check on Facebook*

"...It saves electricity!"

[Nexinator]

I work in data centers pretty much all the time. The biggest thing that they can do is pump the hot air from a "hot aisle" outside the data center. Then, use ambient air from outside (depending on temperature) and then cool that instead of cooling air that is already hotter than outside. I.e reducing 27C to 19C instead of reducing 22C to 19C is a pretty huge cost saving exercise. Yes, there is an issue of humidity (depending on where the DC is, so this may not be a viable option). In winter, it boggles the mind that air conditioners continuously work 24/7/365 when there is sufficient cold air outside. Finding a way to use the cold outside air with no humidity is the ultimate goal to reduce cooling costs to maybe 1/5th of their current usage (maybe more?). The only cost would be the fans pumping the air and some dehumidifiers in each hall, which I suppose would be far cheaper than permanent AC.

[fjoa]

How much energy does the internet SAVE o_O