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By Thomas LEYS – Investment Manager, Fixed Income, Aberdeen Standard Investments
Is watching half an hour of Netflix as bad for the planet as driving an ordinary car four miles? So claimed online blog “Big Think” in October 2019 in a story that quickly made the headlines. Most consumers will be unaware that their video streaming and cloud computing habits are facilitated by energy-hungry data centres all over the world.
Estimates vary, but in 2018 data centres globally may have consumed as much as 400 terawatt-hours of electricity – roughly the same as the entire demand of France. As two thirds of global electricity production still comes from fossil fuels there is a danger that our insatiable demand for data becomes incompatible with efforts...
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