On Thursday, Greenpeace published a study on energy consumption and choices made by IT companies including Akamai, Amazon.com (Amazon Web Services), Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo, entitled "How Dirty Is Your Data?". The study roundly criticizes the sector, especially Facebook, for using "dirty energy" ? power produced from hydrocarbon based sources, especially coal ? to meet growing IT demand. It also criticized companies for concealing details about their own, overall energy footprint and practices.
Greenpeace specifically noted (excerpt from the environmental activists' own summary): Data centers, which house the explosion of virtual information, currently consume 1.5 to 2 percent of all global electricity and are growing at a rate of 12 percent each year; Companies in the sector, as a whole, do not release information on their energy use and its associated global warming emissions...
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