The UK government saying "delete old emails" to save water. 🤦♂️
Most emails average about 50k of storage even for someone who gets a lot of attachments, and will have exactly zero effect on data center consumption.
"Don't use cryptocurrency" and "don't use generative AI" would of course be thousands of times more effective.
@MichaelTBacon @steely_glint gah nerd-swiped here.
50k per email
I’ve got 10,000 emails sitting there.
Uk population 60million
= 30,000 TB ish
Let’s say cloud energy use is 64kWh per TB per year (figures vary wildly, possibly pessimistic)
= 1.92 TWh
It’s not nothing - data at rest is going to be a fair chunk of the overall data centre energy (and by extension water) budget.
(I *hope* I’ve got all my zeroes in the right places)
Michael Bacon
Sam Easterby-Smith
Tim Panton