Rethinking Lifestyle

Recently, Thomas Daigle, technology reporter with the CBC suggested that the internet is using 11% of the total electrical energy used by humans and this percentage is increasing. That story motivated me to dig deeper into our global energy use. It took me a long time to get the numbers straight because we are dealing with huge numbers. Large numbers can be named in at least three ways

• 1,000 (3 zeros) – Thousand
• 1,000,000 (6 zeros) – Million (Mega)
• 1,000,000,000 (9 zeros) – Billion (Giga)
• 1,000,000,000,000 (12) – Trillion (Tera)
• 1,000,000,000,000,000 (15) – Quadrillion (Peta)

The total global energy consumption of all human activity is 113,000 Terawatt hours per year (2017) (Wikipedia). The electrical portion of that is 21,800 Terawatt hours per year or about 19% of total energy. Of that electrical portion, the Swedish Institute of Technology comes up with the same data as the CBC story: that 10-12% of all electrical energy produced is consumed by the internet.

The generation of that electricity is from many different energy sources. Globally, 80% of electricity comes from coal, gas and oil. Another 10% from nuclear sources, 6% from hydro and 4% from non-hydro renewable energy.

In Canada 60% of our electricity comes from hydro, another 7% from non-hydro renewables, 15% from nuclear sources and 19% from coal, gas and oil.

As you can see, electricity in Canada, including the electricity used to run the internet, is much “greener” than in the rest of the world.

So, yes, the internet consumes a lot of energy but is this all bad? The US Department of Transport (2010) estimated a reduction of 28.9 billion vehicle miles due to the internet and telephones. This translates into a substantial reduction in carbon dioxide emissions because passenger vehicles burn gasoline. If we assume cars drive 28.9 miles per gallon of gasoline, then the internet saves us one billion gallons of gasoline per year. This is the equivalent of 33 billion Kilowatt Hours (KwH) of energy. The internet in the US uses about 73 billion KwH. So reduced travel reduces the net energy consumed by the internet by about 45%.

Furthermore, given the green nature of electrical energy in Canada, this looks even better in Canada. In Canada, the fossil energy used to power cars is offset by electrical energy used to power the internet.

These energy numbers are huge and hard to grasp. The encouraging news is that energy is not, and need not, be a limiting factor in human activity. We have adopted a more energy extravagant lifestyle than is necessary for prosperity.

The good news is that every hour (on a sunny day) the sun delivers as much energy to the earth as all human activity consumes in one year. The challenge is to learn how to capture that energy for use. We are making giant strides in that regard. Just consider how much more affordable solar panels are today, compared to ten, twenty or thirty years ago.