How Much Power Does The Internet Use? [Infographic]

Although Facebook has announced plans to improve energy efficiency and it’s new data center in Oregon is 38% more efficient than others, this infographic suggests it is still leading the pack in terms of power usage. The colorful chart is the result of a recent survey of the world’s most visited websites, conducted by Peer 1.

Last week, Greenpeace released a new report looking at the energy choices that power cloud computing. A spokesperson stated:

Our analysis of current data centre investments has found that despite significant advances in making data centres more energy efficient, the sector as a whole is largely ignoring the importance of using renewable energy. Instead, the IT sector is fuelling its expansion, and the storage of your data, with dirty energy sources, like coal and nuclear.

Data centres’ energy consumption is currently growing at a rate of 12% per year as the need for more data storage increases. If the Internet was rated as a country, it’s total energy consumption would be 5th in the world, just after Japan and above Russia.

How dirty is your data? (PDF)

[via Boing Boing]