Server Footprint from SUV to Light Bulb Equivalent in 5 months

The European Commission issued a press release yesterday, “As part of its effort to combat climate change, the European Commission today announced that it would promote the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) to improve energy efficiency throughout the economy, starting with buildings, lighting and the power grid. ICT can enable, across the economy, greener behavior, which would massively cut Europe's carbon footprint if widely deployed. The Commission will encourage the ICT industry to demonstrate leadership in reducing its own CO2 emissions and by identifying and creating solutions that will benefit the whole economy.”

The press release also notes that ”the most advanced computer servers consume the same amount of energy as a standard light bulb.” In the December 2007 report, An Inefficient Truth, it states that "a medium sized server has roughly the same annual carbon footprint as an SUV doing 15 miles per gallon.” From SUV to light bulb is a great efficiency improvement. The sort of order of magnitude of improvement we need to save the planet I think. I will try to get to the bottom of this.

You can read the full release and the 10 page report at the EU web site here.