CO2 emission increasingly impacts climate change, people’s everyday life, and health. Energy sources, such as coal, oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels, create high CO2 emissions. Therefore, the focus has been on developing infrastructure and switching to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and biomass.
These energy sources do not produce greenhouse gases or other pollutants dangerous to health. Also, with the rise of renewable energy sources, the number of potential jobs is expected to rise, and dependency on fossil fuels can be mitigated.
Based on the available information, renewable energy sources are the best solution to save our environment, health, and lives.
But do renewable sources of energy come with downsides?
The main drives why we are turning ourselves to renewable energy sources are lowering CO2 emissions and raising the quality of life and health of people on Earth.
However, switching to renewable energy sources may have limitations due to weather conditions and unintended consequences. For example, wind turbines can be productive only when the wind is strong and continuously blowing, or solar panels can be helpful only during daylight hours.
Applying hydropower on rivers can disrupt the natural flow of those rivers, alter the water temperature and impact the water levels. All these changes affect the species’ natural habitat in the water and may cause fish plague, droughts, and devastation of the vegetation around the rivers. In addition, these changes can be detrimental to the people’s livelihoods that depend on the rivers.
Wind turbines have their downsides, such as noise pollution and the death of birds that fly into a rotating turbine.
Also, some renewable energy sources may cost more than traditional ones.
What about cloud computing companies?
How much proportion do they take in global greenhouse gas emissions percentage? Global emissions from cloud computing range from 2.5% to 3.7%; with that range, they even exceed commercial flights! So how can IT companies reduce their emissions?
Keeping the servers and other equipment cool and storing a tremendous amount of data causes data centers to have high energy consumption.
To reduce their CO2 emission, cloud computing companies are turning to various solutions, including:
- Renewable sources of energy. By lowering their dependence on fossil fuels;
- Offset projects. Some companies invest their time and budget into planting trees and establishing carbon-free practices.
- Monitoring and reducing the business carbon footprint. All emissions are evaluated and made transparent to the partners and customers through regular reporting.
The cloud computing industry is still growing and developing. As a result, we expect that associated CO2 emissions will increase exponentially.
Therefore immediate actions by the players in the cloud computing industry are required.
How does Sardina Systems curb CO2 emissions?
We have a relatively simple, 100% environmentally friendly solution that we will talk about in our next blog.
Want to find out more? Be patient until the next blog.
Previous blogs: https://www.sardinasystems.com/media-center/blog/.