--- In iPad@yahoogroups.com, Devitt <devittad@...> wrote:
>
> What uses more power and/or has a bigger carbon footprint, printing or cloud storage?
>
> This is a very interesting topic. I haven't seen any documented comparisons between them. Does anyone have more detailed information to share? Or a link that treats the subject?
>
> I think both will be with us for quite awhile. So it's not a matter of dissing one and promoting the other. But understanding what the facts are will make it easier for each of us to make our own decisions.
>
> Cathy
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> >>On 9/28/2011 4:40 AM, pabitra saha wrote:
> >
> >
> > Why should there be printing? Save the image/ text on the cloud and use
> > it or send it whenever /wherever you need.
> > Before Ipod, people could not expect mobile device without memory card.
> > Before Ipod touch, people never wanted a personal organiser without
> > keyboard.
> > Before Iphone 1, users could not visualise a phone without normal SIM or
> > replacable batteries.
> > Before Ipad, people could not imagine a product without USB port.
> > Go paperless, save trees, get carbon credits.
> >
>
> Why should there be a cloud?
>
> Your concept that maybe there shouldn't be printing is just as absurd as
> my concept that there shouldn't be a "cloud." Carbon credits for not
> printing? How about negative carbon credits for cloud users -- have you
> any idea what huge electricity power drain all those gigantic server
> farms are, that will be necessary to store everybody's "cloud" data, if
> we all made that leap?
>
> Paper at least is recyclable -- electricity sucked down by server farms
> isn't.
>
> Who's using more energy -- a person printing a few documents (but who
> obviously needs to have a paper supply) or a person who has to reserve
> server farm space for their little corner of the cloud, even if they're
> only using a tiny bit of it to hold documents until they can get to
> their computer to print from there? When you get a cloud account,
> there's a minimum amount of storage space set aside for you to use (or
> not use) as you see fit. But if a million people sign onto that
> service, then they have to have a million times that storage space
> available, and make it available 24 hours a day, which means keeping
> those serves sucking down electricity even when they're not actually in
> use, so that they are always available.
>
> Just because you don't see the carbon-consequences of something doesn't
> mean there aren't any -- that's the nasty secret the electric industry
> wants us all to forget as they encourage more and more power usage. The
> cloud is no more carbon friendly than printing is.
>
> --
> David H. Bailey
> dhbailey@...
>
