{"id":3556,"date":"2011-09-09T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T12:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-04-29T13:47:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T17:47:59","slug":"all-those-servers-do-not-run-cheaply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/09\/all-those-servers-do-not-run-cheaply\/","title":{"rendered":"All those servers do not run cheaply"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Paris_servers_DSC00190.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"487\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190-650x487.jpg\" alt=\"Rack Mounted servers in data center\" class=\"wp-image-3564\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190-650x487.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Paris_servers_DSC00190.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Rack Mounted servers in data center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As Google can verify. \u00a0According to the NYT piece:<a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/09\/09\/technology\/google-details-electricity-output-of-its-data-centers.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Google Details Electricity Usage<\/a>,\u00a0Google said its operations draw approximately 260 million watts continuously to run its online services and office buildings. \u00a0That figure includes all of the e-mail applications, Youtube videos, Google searches, Google documents, etc. \u00a0That works out to be about 6.24 million KWh per day or 21,292,752,000 BTU per day. \u00a0Here are some of the amounts and costs for other fuels:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Fuel<\/td><td>Unit<\/td><td>Amount<\/td><td>Average cost $<\/td><td>Cost per day<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Electricity<\/td><td>KWh<\/td><td>6,240,000<\/td><td>0.05<\/td><td>312,000<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Gasoline<\/td><td>Gallon<\/td><td>185,963<\/td><td>3.61<\/td><td>671,326<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Diesel<\/td><td>Gallon<\/td><td>170,342<\/td><td>4.05<\/td><td>689.885<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Coal<\/td><td>Ton<\/td><td>819<\/td><td>156.40<\/td><td>128,091<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Natural Gas<\/td><td>CCF<\/td><td>211,868<\/td><td>2.335<\/td><td>494,712<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Propane<\/td><td>Gallon<\/td><td>231,443<\/td><td>3.02<\/td><td>698,957<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Those figures do not take into account the efficiency of the generation process. &nbsp;For example, the average coal fired power plant is 32% efficient, thus the actual tonnage of coal needed to produce 6.24 million KWh is 1,376 at a cost of $215,194. &nbsp;Other fuels have similar electrical conversion efficiency, with the internal combustion engine being about 19% efficiency for any given fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some other interesting tidbits from the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Each Google search uses about 0.3 Watt-hours of electric<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The average user uses 180 Watt-hours per month<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Approximately 12.5 million Watts or 30,000 kWh per day are used by search engine traffic<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>25% of Google&#8217;s energy is supplied from renewables<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google designs and builds its own data centers using energy-efficient technology<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>One can assume that other data centers are not as efficient as Google&#8217;s. &nbsp;It would be interesting to do a comparison between the electrical use by AM and FM broadcast transmitter sites and the energy used by data centers that stream radio content. &nbsp;Right now the data center&#8217;s electrical costs are still relatively low because over the air radio listenership far out strips on line listenership. &nbsp;Eventually, those numbers will flip and I&#8217;d think the increased costs associated with greater streaming will be paid by somebody, likely the content generator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All those webstreams, videos, and search engine queries are not free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Google can verify. \u00a0According to the NYT piece: Google Details Electricity Usage,\u00a0Google said its operations draw approximately 260 million watts continuously to run its online services and office buildings. \u00a0That figure includes all of the e-mail applications, Youtube videos, Google searches, Google documents, etc. \u00a0That works out to be about 6.24 million KWh per &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/09\/all-those-servers-do-not-run-cheaply\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">All those servers do not run cheaply<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[224,117],"class_list":["post-3556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-radio","tag-data-centers","tag-streaming-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3556"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11725,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3556\/revisions\/11725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}