The French have more and more digital equipment. This is what the annual digital barometer produced by Arcep showed last May. Something to worry about, given that the environmental impact of this sector, “already significant”, East “in strong growth”, alerted Ademe on Monday, November 4, in particular due to the “development of connected devices and virtual worlds”.
To measure it, the Ecological Transition Agency has published two studies on the subject, one on data centers (or data centers) and the other on the sector's metal needs. She already establishes there that “digital technology represented 2.5% of France's annual carbon footprint [soit l’équivalent du secteur des déchets] and 10% of its electricity consumption”.
In this footprint, Ademe focuses first on data storage centers. The first study shows “that they represent 16% of the digital carbon footprint”, and this, taking into account only the centers located in France. “However, a significant part of uses in France are hosted abroad”underlines the document. And the trend is increasing, particularly due to the rise of artificial intelligence and big data: “Data centers will represent an increasingly significant share of the environmental impact of digital technology, particularly due to the increase in the volume of data (+20% per year) as well as the share of electricity consumption in France which could represent 6% in 2050″. On a global scale, the International Energy Agency (IEA) plans, “a doubling of global electricity consumption linked to data centers by 2026, to reach 1,000 TWh, the equivalent of Japan's electricity consumption.adds Ademe.
The study also mentions water consumption, “for cooling data centers” and who can “prove critical in periods of high heat and water stress”. Ademe also mentions soils, while the construction of new data centers is part of a French objective of “zero net artificialization” by 2050. Faced with these different impacts, Ademe makes several recommendations: implement the new data centers in urban wastelands for example, or even using the heat from servers to “heat a swimming pool, a residence or other neighboring establishment or supply a heating network”illustrates the study.
The second study focuses on the consumption and use of 25 metals for digital equipment (laptops, tablets, smartphones, televisions, consoles, connected objects and even internet boxes). The study notes, firstly, “the great opacity” surrounding the composition of this equipment. It also reports that metal mining is highly concentrated “in some countries, particularly China”, who is “the world's leading producer of 15 of the 25 metals considered in the study, and in a near-monopoly situation for 7 of them.”
Faced with the increase in the number of equipment, Ademe also warns of the drop in availability of certain metals in the future. “Tin, silver, ruthenium, nickel and antimony are considered particularly critical”writes the agency, after assessing the future demand for these metals, the longevity of reserves or even the geopolitical risks linked to their supply. Finally, Ademe deplores the low level of recycling capacities: “For half of the metals studied, this study shows that there is no recycling sector on an industrial scale in France and in the European Union”.
Faced with these multiple challenges, the Ecological Transition Agency invites “reduce” the environmental impacts of the sector, “by ensuring that digital tools, whatever their purpose, are designed to limit the footprint of their manufacture, but also by ensuring that we question their uses, in an approach of sobriety”.
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