Downloading Music Is A Climate Crime

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

$1.5 million fine. Each song kills a Polar Bear. Hopefully a Grizzly bear too.

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
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11 Responses to Downloading Music Is A Climate Crime

  1. Amino Acids in Meteorites says:

    I can’t believe how brainwashed these kids are.

  2. Anything is possible says:

    “The energy used by downloads is around 7kWh per megabyte (the average album will be in the region of 100MB).”

    Hmm… So how much energy does it take to run a GCM?

  3. Leon Brozyna says:

    Hell, there’s a carbon penalty just for living. But that’s just the point … you’re guilty just for being. Once those littly tyrants get you to accept that you’re guily by nature, they’ll have you putting on your own slave collar.

  4. Espen says:

    7 kWh per megabyte?? Haha – that’s insane!! One measly megabyte of download is supposed to drain twice as much energy as our house (including several computers, washing mashine, etc. etc., and including pure electric heating in winter months) use in an hour?? A quick guesstimate (and I have a server farm next to my door here at work and know what it consumes and provides) is that 7Wh per megabyte is more likely to be true, unless you’re using 30 year old servers, of course.

  5. Espen says:

    …in fact, 700Wh (for 100MB of download) is probably about the same as the power consumption of a small electric car for 2 miles, so I guess the Guardian journalist just mixed up kWh with Wh.

  6. MostlyHarmless says:

    She equates the download of a 100Mb album to ” making tea for 12″. This would mean boiling about 6 pints of water ( be generous, it’s cold outside – 1/2 pint mug each) – I calculate this would take 6 x 209 kJ or around 0.348kWh.

    My sceptical eye spots a slight discrepancy in her figures.

    She claims that downloading a 100Mb album consumes 700kWh, and that this is MORE efficient than manufacturing a CD. At a cost of 10p (£0.10) per kWh this would mean the energy cost of producing a CD would be at LEAST £70.00 ( around $113). I must cancel my broadband subscription and rush out and buy a load of CDs – they’re CHEAP!

    From her figures, I also estimate that 10m surfers downloading around 10Mb (not a lot) in a casual 60 min. session would have been responsible for 700MW of power consumption (excluding their own PCs) – the output of a medium-sized power station. The woman needs a reality check. I’ll send her a book token for “Simple Arithmetic for Greenies”. Readers here should have a quick look (I couldn’t stomach more than three) of her other offerings on the Grauniad.

  7. MostlyHarmless says:

    Update: The Guardian article has been amended – by a factor of 1024 no less:

    The point is that there is a carbon penalty for downloading, despite the physical lack of a CD. The energy used by downloads is around 7kWh per gigabyte (the average album will be in the region of 100MB). But downloading is still 40-80% more carbon efficient than buying a CD.

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