Energy and climate impacts of digital technologies

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first of all a big thank you to the

organizers at climate change ai for

inviting me and for all their hard work

in putting this event together

today i’ll be speaking about the energy

and climate impacts of digital

technologies drawing on our work at the

iaea

and all the great research being

conducted by colleagues all around the

world

first a bit of context on where we are

today in terms of our greenhouse gas

emissions

and where we need to go some of you

might already be familiar with charts

like this one which show just how

quickly emissions have grown over the

past few decades

this one shows carbon emissions from the

energy sector this includes everything

from oil and gas production to

electricity generation

to the energy used in transportation

buildings and industries

these are all the sectors that we cover

at the iaea

this year carbon emissions are expected

to fall by around seven percent because

of the covet crisis

or around two and a half billion tons

which would be the biggest

annual drop in history but what’s really

daunting is that emissions need to fall

at almost the space every year for the

coming decades for us to reach our

climate goals

for around 1.5 degrees that means net

zero by 2050.

and for around 1.7 degrees that’s net

zero by 2070.

that means we need big structural

changes to policies and infrastructure

since the kind of behavioral and

economic changes we saw in 2020 just

aren’t sustainable and came at an

incredible cost to human life

and to society

with government spending trillions in

recovery packages we really are at a

critical turning point

if governments invest in clean energy we

still have a chance at a 1.5 degree

world

but if they choose to invest in

polluting technologies and industries

emissions are likely to bounce back like

we’ve seen after other drops in the past

and our chances that even a two degree

world could slip away

so you might be wondering which sectors

and activities are most responsible for

greenhouse gas emissions

about three quarters come from the

energy sector and industrial processes

the rest come from agriculture forestry

land use and waste

within the energy sector emissions come

from many different sectors and services

that use fossil fuels

industries buildings transportation coal

and gas power and fossil fuel production

now with that bit of background let’s

focus on digital technologies and how

they impact

the climate digital technologies have a

very real carbon footprint

from the energy used to power the data

centers data networks computers and

smartphones that we use every day

and how they’re used to affect emissions

from other sectors for example how gps

and smartphones have enabled new

transport services like uber and lyft

and in turn these changes can have

secondary effects on other sectors and

services in our built environment

let’s first look at the direct energy

use and emissions from digital

technologies

one thing about digital technologies is

that they’re growing very quickly

compared to other economic and energy

indicators

since 2000 our population has grown by

around a quarter

gdp has almost doubled electricity use

is up almost 70

while the number of internet users has

grown by more than ten times

and global internet traffic has grown by

more than two thousand times

so it kind of makes sense that there is

growing concern over the

energy and environmental impacts of

digital technologies

here’s a headline from the guardian a

couple of years ago saying that a

tsunami of data could use a fifth of

global electricity by 2025

and these kinds of headlines have been

around for a long time

here’s one from 1999 that predicted that

the internet would use half the u.s

electricity supply by 2010

and for that reason the article argued

that the u.s should build

more coal-fired power plants

but in reality the latest research shows

that energy use and emissions from the

ict sector have actually been flat over

the past decade

researchers in u.s published this paper

in science earlier this year showing how

global data center energy use has been

flat since 2010

since 2010 internet traffic is up 12

times

and demand for data center services is

up seven and a half times

but data center energy use has been flat

at around 200 terawatt hours

which is around one percent of global

electricity use

data transmission networks use another

one

there are really two main drivers that

explain how data demand and energy use

trends have diverged

first the energy efficiency of computing

and data transmission has been doubling

every two to three years

and for data centers there’s also been a

massive shift from smaller less

efficient corporate data centers to much

more efficient cloud and hyper-scale

data centers

and these big data centers are getting

even more efficient a few years ago

deepmind applied machine learning to cut

energy use for cooling by 40

so the industry is doing a lot in terms

of energy efficiency to reduce the

energy that it needs

it’s also doing a lot to make sure that

the remaining energy needs are supplied

with clean electricity

the big tech companies are the biggest

corporate buyers of renewable

electricity in the world

apple and google have reached 100

renewables for a few years now

and facebook is expected to reach 100

renewables later this year

what that means is that they’re buying

enough renewable energy each year to

match the amount of electricity that

they’re using in their operations

so for every terawatt hour of

electricity that they’re using

they’re buying a terawatt hour of

renewables that doesn’t mean that their

operations are fully powered by

renewables

all the time data centers run 24 hours a

day but

solar and wind aren’t available all the

time

that means that they still need to rely

at least some of the time on the grid

and that

it that it means it really depends on

where they operate

you can see on this map from google that

some of their sites like in oklahoma run

almost exclusively on clean electricity

but in other places like singapore it’s

mostly gas

overall they’ve estimated that they’re

at around 60

clean energy on an hourly basis

google recently announced that they’re

aiming to get to 100 carbon free

electricity

24 7 by 2030.

that means they’ll need to get enough

zero carbon electricity at each site for

every hour

of the year that might mean using

machine learning

to better forecast when and where

renewables will be available

so that they can shift some workloads to

different times of the day

or even different sites to take

advantage of renewables being generated

so far we’ve focused mostly on the use

phase of digital technologies

but there are impacts throughout the

life cycle of all products from

raw materials extraction and

manufacturing all the way to end of life

for smartphones for example the use

phase is actually a small part of its

overall environmental impact

around 80 percent comes from material

extraction in the manufacturing phases

and there are some other environmental

impacts beyond energy use and greenhouse

gas emissions

like impacts on land air water

biodiversity and of course electronic

waste

so we’ve talked a bit about data centers

networks and devices

but what are the specific impacts of

individual digital activities

you might have seen headlines like this

one over the past year

which said that watching a half hour

show emits as much

co2 as four miles of driving

it turns out the numbers in those

headlines were 40 to 80 times too high

of course the numbers depend on how your

electricity is generated

and whether you’re watching on a big

screen tv or a smartphone

since a big tv uses about 100 times more

electricity than a phone

but on average a half hour show probably

emits around 20 grams of co2

which is around the same as driving 100

meters in a combustion engine

car the main takeaway here is that

emissions from streaming video are

actually very small compared to other

everyday activities

and definitely much lower than driving

to a movie theater

or buying or renting a dvd

but of course it’s become a lot easier

to watch more

so there’s a big rebound effect we also

need to take into account

so going back to this could this

headline actually come true over the

next five years

that number actually comes from a 2015

study that estimated

ict energy use and emissions out to

the big challenge with long-term energy

projections for digital technologies

is that the technologies and their uses

change quickly

and they’re very hard to predict that

same author’s latest projections

published this year

are four times lower than his original

projections that were quoted in the

guardian

in just the past 10 years we’ve seen

smartphones become mainstream

new generations of mobile networks much

more streaming media

and huge efficiency improvements to keep

energy demand in check

and now we’re seeing emerging

technologies like blockchain machine

learning and 5g

and it’s really hard to predict how new

applications that are built on top of

these technologies could impact data

demand and energy use in 10

20 or even 30 years

let’s shift gears a bit and talk about

some of the effects that digital

technologies could have on other sectors

a good example here is teleworking

something more people are doing these

days

because of kovid generally the direct

energy use of digital technologies is

about the same whether you’re at home or

in the office

so most of the net effects are actually

going to come from using more energy at

home for heating or cooling

offset by energy saved from not

commuting

the net effects really depend on your

situation

if you live in a big home and it’s

winter time you’re probably going to use

a lot of energy for heating

and the amount of energy you save from

not commuting will depend on how far you

travel

and whether you drive take public

transit or walk or cycle

and whether the office saves energy

really depends on how often you telework

because an office that’s half full is

still going to be using a lot of energy

to keep it running

there are also longer term effects that

are difficult to predict

somebody that can telework all the time

might choose to move outside the city

where houses are cheaper to buy and that

might mean that they can buy a bigger

home or get a car

which means they’re probably going to be

using more energy overall

well the net effects of day-to-day

teleworking really depend on the

situation

one thing that’s for sure is that

replacing a business flight with video

conferencing can save a lot of energy

and emissions

a couple years ago we published a report

looking at how digitalization could

impact the energy sector

we found a whole range of applications

that could cut costs improve efficiency

and help reduce emissions

in buildings these are things like smart

building controls and thermostats that

can help optimize energy use

in transport we looked at automated

vehicles and how they could slash energy

use if they’re shared in electric

but could also drastically increase

energy use and emissions if they’re just

if they displace public transport and

are not shared or electric

in industry we looked at how 3d printing

and digital twins could accelerate

innovation and

reduce material and energy use

in electricity sensors and automation

are already being used to improve

efficiency and reduce maintenance costs

machine learning is being applied to

forecast solar and wind and better match

supply and demand from

increasingly decentralized sources

and in oil and gas i just saw a paper

published the other day that applied

machine learning to cut the costs of

detecting methane leaks

i think it’s worth highlighting here

that how digital technologies are

applied in these sectors will really be

shaped by climate policy

it’s important to remind ourselves that

digital technologies are agnostic to

climate

while we hope that they’re applied only

to reduced emissions they could just as

easily be applied to increase emissions

like through extending the lifetime of

coal plants or accelerating the

extraction of oil and gas

what we need are strong climate policies

that to make sure that digitalization

helps to combat climate change

and not make it worse

before i wrap up i just want to

highlight a couple key points about the

challenge ahead for decarbonizing the

energy system

first is that emissions today come from

many different sources

and that means we can’t pick and choose

which sectors to decarbonize or which

clean energy technologies to use

because we need to use all of them to

carbonize all sectors

as quickly as possible and the challenge

with the energy sector is that energy

infrastructure lasts

for a long time especially when we

compare them to digital infrastructure

and hardware

coal-fired power plants have a lifetime

of more than 50 years

and that means a coal plant that’s being

built today in asia could

still be running in 2070.

a new gasoline car that’s coming off the

assembly line could be driving around

in 20 years

the other point is that while dealing

with existing assets we also need to

rapidly scale up existing

and new clean energy technologies this

is an area where i think digital

technologies could play a huge role in

accelerating innovation cycles with

technologies like machine learning and

digital twins

to reach net zero by 2070 about a third

of emission reductions will come from

technologies that aren’t yet commercial

today

and to get to net zero by 2050 almost

half of the emission reductions come

from these technologies

and for hard to abate sectors like heavy

industry and long distance transport

three quarters of the reductions come

from these early stage technologies

so to wrap it up there’s a lot we can do

as individuals researchers and

practitioners to reduce the carbon

footprint of our digital activities

but there’s even more that governments

can do with strong

enabling climate policies to make sure

that digital technologies help to

accelerate climate action

as individuals we can replace our

devices less frequently

and watch our shows on smaller screens

when we can

and there’s a lot we can do with our

transport choices especially flying

and of course our diets but i think the

most important thing we can do as

citizens

is to support climate champions whether

that’s through voting

supporting ngos or buying from

responsible companies

as ml practitioners and engineers

there’s a lot you can do in your

day-to-day work

both in terms of reducing your own

emissions but also figuring out how your

skills could help tackle climate change

in other sectors

governments perhaps have the biggest

role to play through ambitious and

concrete action on climate change that

encourages tech

for good and finally there’s a lot that

tech companies can do

not just reducing their own emissions

from their data centers and products

but figuring out how to use their

cutting edge technologies and vast

resources to accelerate the global clean

energy transition

there’s a lot of potential for digital

technologies to help tackle the climate

crisis

and we need everyone citizens experts

companies

and governments to do their part to help

ensure a more sustainable future

thank you