Energy Guzzlers & Computers

Technion Scientists: Computers and the communication systems are identified as largest Energy Guzzlers

By 2030 half of the US electricity production may be used up to support computers and communication infrastructures. Already now, 8% of the total energy consumption in the United States is directed to support the internet whose rate of growth is growing in an uncontrollable manner.

“Computers and communications are the greatest ‘energy guzzlers’ and it won’t be long before the total energy output will no longer be able to withstand it.” This is according to Technion scientists who organized the first international conference on this topic.

Increasing the electricity production to solve this problem is impractical since constructing new power stations is a slow and environmentally unfriendly process while alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power are inefficient and expensive and their total capacity in insufficient anyways.

Professor Gadi Eisenstein, the Head of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, said that the energy supply will not be able to meet the tremendous growth rate of computer and communications, and in the very near future they will consume more energy than all lighting systems. The solution will not come from new energy production but rather from reducing consumption. This ambitious goal leads scientists to even think about re-inventing the transistor while vastly improving the communication infrastructure.

gadi11At the conference, which will be held at the Technion on April 23-24, leading Israeli and international researchers from academia and industry will lecture on the subject. Among the topics to be covered: large-scale computer systems such as data centers, connectivity of supercomputers and the proposed introduction of optics into electronic chips.

“The internet will continue to grow at an uncontrollable rate,” warns Professor Eisenstein. “Any attempts to limit it will not succeed. This is about a subject that is no longer a technological issue but rather, it has developed into a social, economic an dpolitical issue. The Internet is an amazing and positive historical phenomenon that has radically changed our lives and now we must find solutions to the energy problems it has brought on.”

Read the Hebrew article published by Ha’aretz here: http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/science/.premium-1.2288241

In the Photo: Professor Gadi Eisenstein

Photographed by: The Technion’s Spokesperson’s Office