The music video for “Despacito” set an Internet record in April 2018 when it became the first video to hit five billion views on YouTube. In the process, "Despacito" reached a less celebrated milestone: it burned as much energy as 40,000 U.S. homes use in a year.

Computer servers, which store website data and share it with other computers and mobile devices, create the magic of the virtual world. But every search, click, or streamed video sets several servers to work — a Google search for "Despacito" activates servers in six to eight data centers around the world — consuming very real energy resources.

A lot of them.

Today, data centers consume about 2% of electricity worldwide; that could rise to 8% of the global total by 2030, according to a study by Anders Andrae, who researches sustainable information and communications technology for Huawei Technologies Ltd.

S. data centers consumed 70 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2014, the same amount that 6.4 million American homes used that year. Data centers need electricity to power their servers, storage equipment, backups, and power cooling infrastructure; most servers require temperatures below 80 degrees Fahrenheit to operate, and cooling can comprise up to 40% of electricity usage in conventional data centers.

"People don't think about the backend consequences of Netflix streaming," says Debra Tan, the director of Hong Kong-based nonprofit China Water Risk. "The information and communications technology (ICT) sector is probably one of the most power-hungry sectors going forward."

The global shift toward what Tan calls "cloud-based societies"—and the rise of nascent tech like 5G networks, robotics, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies—means electricity consumption in data centers will keep surging.

Data's massive carbon footprint

Because servers are housed in nondescript data centers rather than factories with billowing smokestacks, the size of their carbon footprint is easily overlooked.

But the constant and increasing demand for connectivity means ever more energy funneled into these data centers, and much of that energy is non-renewable and contributes to carbon emissions. Data centers contribute 0.3% to global carbon emissions, according to Nature; the ICT sector as a whole contributes over 2%, and those numbers could increase.

The U.S. is home to 3 million data centers, or roughly one for every 100 Americans. A large number are clustered in Loudoun County in northern Virginia. Tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google operate data centers there, and county officials claim that 70% of the world's Internet traffic flows through the area's data centers.

Only 12% of Amazon's Loudoun County data centers and 4% of Google's are powered by renewable energy, despite their pledges to shift to 100% clean energy, according to Greenpeace. The region's low commercial electricity rates make it an attractive site for power-guzzling data centers.

Debra Tan of China Water Risk says that American tech firms with a global presence like Google and Facebook must step up their existing commitments to clean energy, as must Chinese tech companies like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, which sourced 67% of their energy from coal in 2017. China's data center industry is the world's second-largest, comprising 8% of the global market.

“The ICT sector can definitely lead the world in aggressive decarbonization because they’re the sector that will add on the most power going forward,” says Tan. “They have the capability [and] they have the scale.”

The data never ends

The Internet's "never-ending creation of data" explains why electricity demand in data centers will likely surge in the future, says Huawei researcher Anders Andrae, who cites more advanced video, 5G networks, A.I. training, holography, and cryptocurrency mining as some of the drivers.

The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining has been a concern for many watching the rise of cryptocurrencies, and analysts have said Bitcoin mining consumes around 0.3% of global electricity (some skeptics argue that such estimates are exaggerated, however).

In China, the government is starting to crack down on the practice. Authorities in China's Inner Mongolia province said earlier this month that they will no longer support the crypto mining industry, though they did not issue an official ban.

Inner Mongolia's cheap electricity, thanks to a wealth of coal, is what first drew crypto miners to the far-flung province. In China, data centers get 73% of their power from coal and 23% from renewable sources. The country's clean energy industry is still developing, so there is a lack of infrastructure compared to coal-powered sources, which are relatively cheap and abundant—China accounts for half of global coal consumption.

China's data centers emitted 99 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2018 and will emit two-thirds more by 2023 unless industry addresses its energy consumption, per a 2019 study by Greenpeace and North China Electric Power University.

Ye Ruiqi, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia, says that the initiative to move the industry towards renewable energy "must come from internet data center companies themselves."

"We need to start addressing the carbon emissions and air pollutants associated with the source[s] of power that feed into our data centers." Ye says, noting that a handful of Chinese companies have started shifting to renewables and "the results are promising."

While consumers can make some daily changes to their consumption—streaming Netflix on medium quality rather than high-definition could save over 75% of carbon and water used—companies and governments must take the lead in the greening of the supply chain and development of renewable energy infrastructure, says Tan.

"We can get more efficient [...] but our demand is also going to go up," Tan says. "Your best bet is to go 100% renewables for the backend, cloud, all the transmission towers, et cetera. If you can get that infrastructure to green then there's less pressure to curbing demand."

It will be difficult, but if the sector takes action to shift from coal to renewable energy, electricity consumption can decouple from carbon emissions, Ye says: "Technology innovation doesn't have to contradict [sustainable] development."

2018年4月，音乐视频“Despacito”创下互联网纪录，成为YouTube上首个点击率达到50亿的视频。然而过程中，“Despacito”也创下了没什么人知道的里程碑，巨大流量消耗的能源相当于多达4万户美国家庭的用量。

计算机服务器主要功能是存储网站数据并与其他计算机和移动设备共享，由此打造了神奇的虚拟世界。但每次搜索、每个点击或流媒体视频每次播放都需要多个服务器工作，如果用谷歌搜索“Despacito”，就会激活全球6到8个数据中心的服务器，消耗大量能源。

而且是很多能源。

如今，数据中心消耗了全球约2%的电力。华为负责研究可持续信息和通信技术安德斯·安德雷表示，到2030年可能上升到消耗全球电力的8%。

2014年，美国数据中心用电量为700亿千瓦时，相当于同年640万美国家庭的用电量。数据中心需要电力为服务器、存储设备、备份和电力冷却基础设施供电；大多数服务器需要温度低于80华氏度才能正常运行，在传统数据中心，冷却耗电量可占总量的40%。

“人们不会考虑Netflix流媒体在后端造成的影响，”总部位于香港的非营利组织中国水务危机主管Debra Tan表示。“未来信息和通信技术（ICT）部门可能是最耗电的领域之一。”

随着Debra Tan所称的全球向“云社会”的转变，以及5G网络、机器人、人工智能和加密货币等新兴技术兴起，数据中心的用电量还将继续飙升。

数据庞大的碳足迹

服务器一般位于不起眼的数据中心，而不是烟囱滚滚的工厂，所以碳足迹很容易被忽略。

但是，连接需求不断增长意味着数据中心需要越来越多能源，其中大部分为不可再生能源，且会导致碳排放。根据《自然》杂志统计，数据中心在全球碳排放中的份额为0.3%；信息和通信技术部门整体占的份额超过了2%，而且可能继续增加。

美国有300万个数据中心，约每100个美国人就有一个。弗吉尼亚州北部的劳顿县聚集了大量数据中心。亚马逊、微软和谷歌等科技巨头的数据中心均在该处，县政府官员声称，全球70%的互联网流量都通过当地的数据中心。

绿色和平组织表示，尽管亚马逊和谷歌都承诺将劳顿县的数据中心转向100%清洁能源，但实际上只有12%的亚马逊数据中心和4%的谷歌数据中心采用了可再生能源。该地区商业电价较低，因此对耗电大户数据中心很有吸引力。

CWR的Debra Tan表示，谷歌和Facebook等业务遍布全球的美国科技公司必须承诺加大使用清洁能源，百度、阿里巴巴和腾讯等中国科技公司也一样，2017年中国科技巨头消耗的能源当中有67%来自煤炭。中国的数据中心产业排名全球第二，市场份额占全球8%。

“积极走向低碳化方面，信息和通信技术行业绝对可以引领世界，因为都是未来最具影响力的部门，”Debra Tan表示。“这些行业有能力，规模也足够大。”

数据永不停止

华为的研究者安德斯·安德雷表示，互联网“永不停止地创造数据”，所以未来数据中心的电力需求可能激增，他认为更先进的视频、5G网络、人工智能培训、全息照相和加密货币挖矿皆为驱动因素。

很多关注加密货币崛起的人一直在担心比特币开采导致的能源消耗。分析人士表示，比特币挖矿消耗了全球约0.3%的电力（一些质疑者认为，估算数字有所夸大）。

中国政府已开始严厉打击挖矿。本月早些时候，内蒙古自治区当局宣布不再支持加密采矿业，不过并未发布官方禁令。

内蒙古煤炭资源丰富，电力相当廉价，因此吸引了不少加密货币矿工前往地处偏远的内蒙挖矿。在中国，数据中心73%的电力依赖煤炭，23%使用可再生能源。中国的清洁能源产业仍在发展中，与煤电能源相比基础设施匮乏，煤电能源价格相对低廉，中国的煤炭消费量占全球的一半。

2019年绿色和平组织和华北电力大学联合研究显示，2018年中国的数据中心排放了9900万吨二氧化碳，如果工业部门无法解决能源消耗问题，到2023年二氧化碳排放量还将增加三分之二。

绿色和平组织东亚气候与能源活动人士叶瑞琪（音译）表示，要推动行业转向可再生能源发展，“必须靠互联网数据中心公司自身”。

“我们要着手解决与数据中心耗能相关的碳排放和空气污染物问题，”叶指出，中国已有一些公司开始转向可再生能源，“颇有前景。”

虽说消费者日常消费行为可以做一些改变，比如在Netflix观看流媒体时选择中等画质而非高清，就可以节省75%以上的碳和水资源，但企业和政府应该在供应链绿化和可再生能源基础设施开发方面起带头作用，Debra Tan表示。

“可以提高效率，……，但需求也会上升，”Debra Tan说。“最好是后端、云、以及所有输电塔等100%采用可再生能源。如果基础设施能实现充分利用清洁能源，抑制需求的压力就会变小。”

做起来并不容易，但如果相关行业采取行动，从煤炭转向可再生能源，电力消费确实可以与碳排放脱钩，叶表示：“技术创新与（可持续）发展并不一定存在矛盾。”（财富中文网）

译者：Allen

审校：夏林