I
honestly believe the world will change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,
with daily lives being disrupted like never before for my generation and those
that will follow. I don’t want to dwell too much on the virus in this blog, but
it’s fair to say it’s devastated lives, families and the global economy as a
whole. It is a truly awful disease and my heart goes out to everyone who has
suffered.
However,
I try to be as positive as possible and I have noticed that the air around me
seems much fresher, the sky is vivid blue more often, my garden is full of
beautiful wildlife and the rivers and lakes close to my house seem to be
sparking clear. And the thing is, unless you're a member of the fake news,
anti-science society, then it’s clear that high levels of pollution and
man-made climate change poses a huge threat to human existence. We, the
humans have caused this and it’s down to us to do something. For me the
pandemic has firmly cemented this idea for me.
Now
before you all start calling me some kind of hippie or bohemian, I am by no
means perfect. But over the last few years, thanks to a fair bit of interest
and research, I've become acutely aware of such things, so at home every light
is now based on LED technology, I know exactly which solar panels I want fitted
and I can reel off the specs of most of the currently available home batteries.
I no longer spend hours looking at those thumping eight-cylinder Ford Mustangs
and instead spend far too much time on the Tesla configurators instead. Times
are indeed a’changing and I need to continue to change with it.
This
personal interest extends into my field of IT and cloud computing. Now, let me
be crystal clear - IT will never, ever be green and the ongoing onslaught of
continual improvement and uptake in technology means it never can, not without
a total game changing revolution of technology which is, at this point,
impossible. Batteries are manufactured using precious minerals and
metals, mined in some of the world’s most dangerous and exploited areas, IT data centres use a colossal amount of power and even the large cloud computing
providers like Microsoft, Amazon and Google who can invest in designing optimal infrastructure and computer hardware used by their cloud computing services are
still largely powered by fossil fuels.
This
is changing though. Microsoft
are on track to shift 100% of all power sources to renewable energy by 2025
and become carbon negative by 2030. Google
claim to have been carbon neutral for over a decade and are looking to be
able to run their datacentres using renewable energy 24/7/365 and Amazon claim
that in 2018 they ran their datacentres for 50% of the time using wind and
solar power. You can debate the various reasons for them doing this until the
cows come home, but we’re now at a point where renewable energy is cheaper to
produce than fossil fuels so that’s one reason why these behemoths are
increasingly using them, as it lowers their operating costs and gives them a
competitive advantage. Batteries are now being made with less cobalt too, thanks to non-stop development.
I’m
a firm believer that if you want to be as green as is currently possible using
technology, then cloud computing is the way to go. I just hope that once the
new-normal is established and whatever that entails, we can keep the clearer
skies and make faster progress.
