In addition to language skills, the Philippines has better utility infrastructure than India — so companies spend little on generators and diesel fuel. Also, cities here are safer and have better public transportation, so employers do not have to bus employees to and from work as they do in India.

Full report.

But those constant conversions cause power losses. For example, in conventional data centers, with hundreds of computers, electricity might be converted and “stepped down” in voltage five times before being used. All that heat must be removed by air-conditioners, which consumes more power.

In a data center redesigned to use more direct current, monthly utility bills can be cut by 10 to 20 percent, according to Trent Waterhouse, vice president of marketing for power electronics at General Electric.

“You can cut the number of power conversions in half,” Mr. Waterhouse said.

On a far smaller scale, SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a data center at its offices in Palo Alto, Calif. The project cut its energy bills by $24,000 a year.

The next great expansion of the world’s digital infrastructure is under way in developing markets like those of China, Brazil and Argentina, according to a global census of the industry released on Monday.

Despite growing concerns of a global economic slowdown, the companies that construct and operate data centers that run the Internet and store vast amounts of corporate and government data expect growth next year to match levels last seen in the world economy’s boom years: about 19 percent.

The census focused on data centers, the buildings and complexes filled with the computers that operate the Internet, store and process e-mail, preserve medical records, carry out Web searches and perform countless other tasks for corporations, governments and other organizations. The London-based company that released the results, DatacenterDynamics, said it conducted some 5,400 interviews this year with industry officials around the world. Those officials are responsible for about 100,000 data centers, the company said.

Global energy demand will increase 53 percent from 2008 through 2035, with China and India accounting for half of the growth, the United States Department of Energy said on Monday.

China and India will consume 31 percent of the world’s energy by 2035, up from 21 percent in 2008, the department’s International Energy Outlook projected. In 2035, Chinese energy demand will exceed that of the United States by 68 percent, it said.

Report.

I’ve had little time for people who criticize energy use of web search. Earlier writing was without too much data, because data was not available. Here are the data.

Every time a person runs a Google search, watches a YouTube video or sends a message through Gmail, the company’s data centers full of computers use electricity. Those data centers around the world continuously draw almost 260 million watts — about a quarter of the output of a nuclear power plant.

Up to now, the company has kept statistics about its energy use secret. Industry analysts speculate it was because the information was embarrassing and would also give competitors a clue to how Google runs its operations.

While the electricity figures may seem large, the company asserts that the world is a greener place because people use less energy as a result of the billions of operations carried out in Google data centers. Google says people should consider things like the amount of gasoline saved when someone conducts a Google search rather than, say, drives to the library. “They look big in the small context,” Urs Hoelzle, Google’s senior vice president for technical infrastructure, said in an interview.

What is interesting is that the trigger for getting the USD 80 solar generator in the story below was the phone:

For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market.

Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid.

Every week, Ms. Ruto walked two miles to hire a motorcycle taxi for the three-hour ride to Mogotio, the nearest town with electricity. There, she dropped off her cellphone at a store that recharges phones for 30 cents. Yet the service was in such demand that she had to leave it behind for three full days before returning.

That wearying routine ended in February when the family sold some animals to buy a small Chinese-made solar power system for about $80. Now balanced precariously atop their tin roof, a lone solar panel provides enough electricity to charge the phone and run four bright overhead lights with switches.

The colloquium began by Nalaka explaining the big picture; Climate change and energy use.  Global warming is not new but the rate of global warming is. There is a multiplicity of gases causing global warming and their sources.

Looking at the Green House Gas (GHG) mix, Carbon Dioxide is dominant. Made source is fossil fuel use. The ‘F’ gases such as CFC are the man made – now getting phased out.  There is an expansion in the volume of Green house gases.

Nalaka explaied that all GHG are not equal. Methene is much worse than Carbon Dioxide, but Carbon di Oxide has a much worse reputation

Looking at the sources of GHG, there is a variation depend on the organiation which the data is obtained from. A question was raised about the impact of forestry on GHG emmisions, Nalaka explained that deforestation is the main contributor. Electricity and heat or energy supply are the biggest source with forestry a close second.

Nalaka then went on to talk about the Stern Report (UK govt, 2006) which said  ’Climate change is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen…’ He higlighted the lack of referece to ICT in the report. The only direct reference was to household appliances. Green ICTs have received more attention since then. The Stern report has never been challenged on its premise or analysis as far as Nalaka was aware.  ICT and Aviation has roughly the same level of emmision, however aviation gets much more flack. ICT sector directly contribute 2.5% of total GHG emisions according to the Mckinsey report to the UN in 2007.

The adaptability of the IT and Telecom sector to consumer demands, as such the sector should be able to respond better to the problem of GHG emmision than other industries.

Next, Nalaka moved on to how the ICT sector ‘green’ itself beyond simple CSR/PR gestures? An ITU report elaborated on why the GHG from the ICT industry has been rising. Among the reasons  were Proliferation of user devicesUsers owning more devices, Devices today consume more energy and More processing needs more cooling. Nalaka then explained thaat some of the new technology such as sHD televisions draw more power than the traditional units. The stand by power or vampire enrgy too contributes significantly to energy consumption. standby power cost 8% of entire British domestic power consumption (UK Energy Rev, 2006)

Some of the suggestions given by Bill Melody were Improving sector’s own carbon footprint, ICT applications improving efficiency of other sectors, esp. infrastructure.Third order implications from widespread applications of green ICT that change institutions & behaviour patterns.

In taking the first point, with IT and telecom sectors, we can look at both Macro/industry level savings and then micro/consumer level savings.

In taking the Telecom sector, the opportunity lies in telecom migrating to Next Gen Networks (NGN) as Less switching centres needed, More tolerant climatic range specs (less need for air conditioning) and New standards (VDSL2) allow 3 power modes: full, low, sleep

Are savings being offset? Some of the questions are how energy-conscious are services & applications riding on NGNs? Rapid growth of web-based services driving up power demand & CO2 emissions

Rising power use by server farms supporting PC and mobile web use: Hidden green costs of Google apps? Does a web search kill a tree?

The ETNO report highlights the need for Srategic approach and also the need for scaling. The plan to reduce GHG will only work if the operators and players make a commitment.

What are the cost benefit ratios? What is the effect of ITC on the Transport? The other is the concept is cloud computing. Finding from 3rd annual survey by Rackspace, Pub Sep 2009 (150 IT managers worldwide) http://tiny.cc/GreenCloud says that there is no tangible drop.

What are the other low hanging fruits? Also which of the technology that can be passed without bing stuck in political bickering and policy paralysis? An example is the Copenhagen summit. In copenhegen no one wanted to be the first to make changes.

The other level is where ICTs and Telecom help other sectors go green? One OCED analysis says that creative use of ICTs can reduce electricity consupltion/GHG emmisions by 15%. THere is also the process (experimetal) of carbon capture. Norway is at the moment building carbon traps.

What are the cost benefit ratios? What is the effect of ITC on the Transport? The other is the concept is cloud computing. Finding from 3rd annual survey by Rackspace, Pub Sep 2009 (150 IT managers worldwide) http://tiny.cc/GreenCloud says that there is no tangible drop.

The Transmission and distribution loss is about 18% in Sri Lanka,  Delhi can be as high as 40%. A certain level is unavoidable. US is abut 7%, theoretically SL can go lower as the systemis much more compact. Most of the loss is that the generation and end use is not prperly coordinated. This is the Smart rid arguemtn. We also have to be awre of the re-bound. The relationaship is not linear. There is a need for better measuremnent.

Big Challenges: Growing human numbers, Rising middle classes through globalization and Global warming.

What is to be done? Look for a ‘handle’ on Climate/ET/IT, Ignore corporate spin, media hype, Search for strategic ‘entry points’, Study trends & patterns, Demystify industry data, find policy implications, Look for improvements that are: significant, affordable & less politically contentious Measurable & scalable

We also will require regular tracking, simple industry wide chnges and find Ways to crowd-source for monitoring and innovation.

ICTs have the ability to make under the radar changes unlike the avation industry.

Finally; “Telcos are punching below their weight in the climate change arena – they can be part of the solution than part of the problem. They will find it hard to avoid being victims of climate change, but they can reduce their role as villains; and they might even turn out to be heroes.” –  Stephen Young, Ovum Consulting http://www.ovum.com/go/content/c,67759 and “We need both IT and ET, flat and green, working together. Because only then can everyone and everything be both distributed and connected. If we can get that, the world will have a new operating system!” – K R Sridhar, CEO, Bloom Energy

Sujata Gamage: A starting point maybe to start with Melody’s levels and form a picture with the sectors metioned at te begining.

Rohan SAmarajiva: A clear starting poitn is the improvement of the individual sectors’ carbon foot print.

Healni Galpaya: Carbon trading seems to be failing, but there is an economic incentive(s) to switch to more green technology in the telecom sectors in developing countries that adopt the budget telecom model.

Nalaka: The cost of nergy sources such as solar power are falling.

Helani, Rohan: There is no taxes etc involved in the installation on solar panels. There is a need to work wtih the industry to learn more about this.

Rohan: Transport/ICT trade off? Improvements in Efficiency does not mean green solutions.

Shazna: Maybe we can look at the Telecom sector in terms of research:

Nalaka: That maybe a sarting point. No multi country studies have been done.

WHAT was the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century? The motor car, perhaps, or the computer? In 2000 America’s National Academy of Engineering gave a different answer: “the vast networks of electrification”. These, the academy concluded, made most of the century’s other advances possible.

But whereas cars, computers and so forth have become ever more sophisticated, power grids have remained, in essence, sets of dumb wires. Thomas Edison, a pioneer of electrification in the 1880s, would be able to run them. Power is fed into the grid from power stations in the hope that it will arrive in factories, offices and homes. To this day most utilities rely on consumers to tell them that the power is out—and may then have to put in a lot of detective work to discover the cause.

This may be changing at last. A global movement is afoot to make grids “smart”. This means adding all kinds of information technology, such as sensors, digital meters and a communications network akin to the internet, to the dumb wires. Among other things, a smart grid would be able to avoid outages, save energy and help other green undertakings, such as electric cars and distributed generation.

Unsatisfied broadband users added flavor to both our Public Seminar and Mobile Broadband QoSE workshop. That included university students prevented access during the residential peak to Wi-Max subscribers experiencing 20% of the promised speed – even with perfect LoS (Line of Sight).

Such complaints are common and not limited to Sri Lanka. From Indonesia to India and from Bangladesh to Philippines we find broadband users rant not receiving the promised. We empathise with them, but this hardly an Asian or a developing world issue. The conditions elsewhere can be worse.

The weird arrangement above is an attempt by a Guest House in Johannesburg, South Africa to provide me Internet access. They still failed. It was in a way good, because I was told the quality was poor and even a simple task like accessing e-mails a nightmare sometimes.

According to CIA’s World Fact Book, South Africa is a middle-income, emerging market with an abundant supply of natural resources; well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors; a stock exchange that is 17th largest in the world; and modern infrastructure supporting an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centers throughout the region. Either broadband quality does not stand to its other achievements or this is an isolated issue.

LIRNEasia, with the assistance of its research partners there, intends to extend its broadband benchmarking to Africa. More stories are in pipeline, when we have test results in few months.

In 2006, Stockholm experimented with congestion pricing, charging cars up to $4 to enter the downtown area, depending on the time of day. The cars were monitored with RFID cards and webcams that photographed license plate numbers. Drivers had to pay within two weeks or faced penalties, but I.B.M. linked the driver data to 400 convenience stores in the city to make payment easier.

Within a few weeks, the impact in Stockholm was evident, and it has proved permanent. Car traffic in downtown Stockholm has been reduced by 20 percent, carbon dioxide emissions have dropped 12 percent, and the city’s public transport system has added 40,000 daily riders, I.B.M. said. The webcams accurately read license plates, even on snowy days, more than 95 percent of the time. So the RFID tags are no longer in use. After expenses, the smart traffic system generates $80 million a year for the city.

Stockholm is a city in a Scandinavian country with a long environmental tradition, in a socially democratic nation. Yet even in Stockholm, there were complaints initially. The city also took the risk of installing the entire system, calling it a trial, and then having residents vote on it seven months later, after the benefits were apparent.

TV commentary said Monday’s night-time launch from a Safir-2 rocket was “another achievement for Iranian scientists under sanctions”.

The satellite was designed for research and telecommunications purposes, the television report said.

Iran is subject to UN sanctions as some Western powers think it is trying to build a nuclear bomb, which it denies.

Tehran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to the production of energy, and has emphasised its satellite project is entirely peaceful.

The launch of the Omid (Hope) satellite had been expected and was clearly timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, says the BBC’s Jon Leyne in Tehran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the satellite was launched to spread “monotheism, peace and justice” in the world.

Read the full story in BBC here.

Airwaves, Web Power at Auction – New York Times

The radio spectrum licenses, which are to be returned from television broadcasters as they complete their conversion from analog to digital signals in February 2009, are as coveted as oil reserves are to energy companies. They will provide the winners with access to some of the best remaining spectrum — enabling them to send signals farther from a cell tower with far less power, through dense walls in cities, and over wider territories in rural areas that are now underserved.

She mentions in several places that the SEC D&E consumers are willing to spend more money than expected on education, health and transport.  She also mentions ICTs.   In her talk she mentioned that many in SEC D are pulling their children out of government schools and putting them into private schools that teach in the English medium.  Her explanation, which I think is still a hypothesis, is the search for “escape velocity.”

The analogy is to the burst of energy required to break free of the earth’s gravitational pull.  These people and their children, she argues, are stuck.   If they do not do something unusual, they will remain in more or less the same socio-economic group.  They see education (in ICTs, in English, etc.) as something that will allow a child the break free of the gravitational pull holding back the family.   Maybe, actually break free; maybe, give the hope of breaking free.   If the child does break free, the whole family will be liberated.   They will move from SEC E to SEC C or whatever.

From a long time back people have been searching for the causal link between investment in ICTs and development.   If a dollar invested in ICTs gives 1+x dollars of economic growth, the case is made for greater investment in ICTs.   So we have studied transaction costs and all sorts of things, looking for the magic factor.

Perhaps we have not been asking the right question.   Ashok Jhunjhunwala’s slides showing a radical rearrangement of the urban and rural income quintiles (in the urban case, going from a pyramid shape to a classic bell shape within maybe 5-6 years of rapid growth; and in the rural case, changing the shape from an exponential decline to a more conventional pyramid) need to be brought into the discussion to fill this out.   His data seems to show that large numbers of Indians at the very bottom of the pyramid are moving up, changing the shape of the income distribution from a pyramid to a diamond, at least  in India’s urban areas.   The macro data shows a significant number of Indians gaining escape velocity.   

Rama, beginning from a completely different starting point of demand analysis, appears to see the same phenomenon. Is what she is seeing from the micro level and what Ashok is seeing from the macro that same thing?   Is this a general increase in mobility, or does ICT have something to do with it?   What kinds of questions can we include in our teleuse@BOP survey to capture this?   If we do capture it, how will it change the discourse on ICT4D?           

BBC NEWS | Technology | Physics promises wireless power

US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players wirelessly.

The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.

Although the team had not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it would work.

“There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years,” said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.

“We started thinking, ‘it would be really convenient if you didn’t have to recharge these things’.

“And because we’re physicists we asked, ‘what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?’.”

The answer the team came up with was “resonance”, a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.