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 January
22-23rd, 2009, the
California Public Utilities Commission and the
California
Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology
(CALIT2) hosted
Greening the Internet Economy, an invitation-only event
bringing together hundreds of the foremost public policy
makers, industry experts, research leaders, and global
nonprofits to advance strategies for sustainability and energy
efficiency in the rapidly growing realm of information and
communications technology (ICT).
It discussed how ICT could play a role in meeting AB32 goals
of 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in California by
2050. ICT as a term was used consistently throughout the event
(on every intro slide), and it was estimated that ICT is
responsible for 2% of greenhouse gas emissions. California
Public Utilities Commissioner Rochelle Chong was the event
host. President Peavey of the CPUC spoke.
Ideas and
issues discussed included:
- Improving the efficiency of data centers, about half
of ICT consumption (where only 3% of power consumed is
used productively)
-
 Cloud
computing as a method of reducing the power consumed by
devices at the edge
- ICT empowering smart grids to make electricity
transmission and distribution more efficient and to
provide consumer feedback for opportunities to reduce
consumption
- ICT to enable a reduction of travel (moving bits, not
atoms)
- Virtualization
- More efficient software and system designs
- Importance of getting to zero emission electricity
production and plugging cars and other devices into that
- ICT to enable smart buildings (major consumers of
energy)
- ICT to improve the efficiency of transportation
systems (major consumers of energy)
- Eliminating or reducing “vampire” power consumption by
devices not really operating
- Greening higher education facilities (5-10% of U.S.
carbon emissions)
At the end, MPICT put in a plug, saying the event had done a
great job bringing together thought leaders to develop plans
and systems for energy and carbon emission reductions. At some
point, however, the plans would need to include how real
people learn to go out into the real world and do real things
with real equipment to effect real changes.
We have an
incredible tool in our collective tool kits for that:
community colleges. They are the most cost effective way to
push valuable knowledge and skills out into our communities to
effect change.
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