Some links on information technology, resource use, and environmental impacts

I chatted with a reporter a few days ago about the electricity used by data centers. This happens every month or two—somebody comes to me with concern about the power used by computers and other information technology (IT) equipment and I talk them through the history of this topic. It’s a complex area, but the bottom line is that most folks seem to overestimate how much power computers use and underestimate how much environmental (and other) good they do.

I’ve collected some of the recent links to writing on this topic below. Please submit suggestions in the comments section for other references to include.

I boiled down some of the history/context of this issue in a blog post on Climate Progress on June 21, 2010.

This commentary is one that Evan Mills (of LBNL) and I posted on February 2, 2009 when some spurious claims on the electricity needed for a Google search were making the rounds.  Joe Romm also summarized this controversy in a post on Climate Progress on January 12, 2009.

This blog post on Climate Progress summarizes articles on the environmental impacts of IT that appeared in a freely accessible recent issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

If you’re interested in the controversy circa 2000 about total power used by computers and IT equipment, email me for copies of the Epilogue to the 2nd edition of Turning Numbers into Knowledge, “Network electricity use associated with wireless personal digital assistants,”  and “Sorry, Wrong Number:  The use and misuse of numerical facts in analysis and media reporting of energy issues”.  You can also look at this link for more details.