Can Green IT break the Jevons Paradox?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/comment/2211947/break-jevon-paradox

Can Green IT break the Jevons Paradox?

The IT industry has made great strides in improving energy efficiency but, as Andy Lawrence of The 451 Group asks, can it cut power use when demand for computing power keeps rising?

BusinessGreen, 13 Mar 2008

The Eco-efficient IT movement has come a long way in the past year: a wide variety of energy efficient products have been introduced; a number of influential industry organisations have been formed and are exercising influence; and a slate of new ways to measure or benchmark energy efficiency have been proposed or introduced.

Progress is most notable in the US, where the red-in-tooth-and-claw fossil fuel chompers of the Bush heyday are now distinctly quieter than the new environmentalists (although they certainly still exist).

At the Green Grid conference in San Francisco in February, for example, hundreds of companies attended, there was no debate about the reality or causes of climate change (since that argument is over) and two American government departments, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, both distinguished themselves by introducing new initiatives to encourage energy efficiency in datacentres. Almost every face at the Green Grid displayed sincerity, optimism, intelligence and the ability to command resources.

In spite of all this, it is perhaps time to sound some notes of caution. Green IT over the past year has, quite rightly, focused on the lowest hanging fruit – energy efficiency. Energy use in IT is, and will remain for many years, absurdly profligate. It has been estimated, for example, that of every 100 volt-amps generated at the grid, only six per cent ends up driving a server

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