Carnegie Mellon Sustainable Infrastructure Management : Prospective Effects of Information and Communications Technologies April 20, 2004

Carnegie Mellon Admin Issues HW 4 Avg = 36 No HW 5! Presentations Start Thursday: –Aurora/Gibson/Kari –Subhash/Lanka –Cheng-Chien/Junbeum

Carnegie Mellon Policy Research Issue In a modern and evolving global economy, how will information and communications technology (ICT) sectors accelerate economic growth, energy and infrastructure dependence, and social welfare? –ICT as a double-edged sword Answer requires a system-wide perspective –Many systems involved: LCA, built and digital infrastructures, social systems

Carnegie Mellon Infrastructure Issues Vast majority of energy consumed by ICT is electricity in buildings (resid + comm) Places burdens on businesses, consumers, and energy policymakers to manage demand ICT has implications on other digital and built infrastructures –Data networks, highways, airspace, logistics –ICT has not ‘replaced’ these, it is ‘overlayed’ –And creates interdependencies between them ICT networks organized like traditional networks

Carnegie Mellon Office Building ICT Use Sources: EIA CBECS (1992, 1999), Annual Energy Outlook 2002 [Commercial electricity projected to increase 1.7% per year, commercial ICT 4% per year] Anecdote: roughly 200 sq. ft of total commercial space per person! ICT electricity use in office buildings projected to increase a factor of 10 from 1992 levels, intensity a factor of 8 -> to 2% of all US electricity To reduce burden, further ‘green building’ programs needed to offset projected ICT electricity growth

Carnegie Mellon Spillover Effects ICT use goes beyond ‘building’ electricity –Networks decentralized - consume electricity globally –Creating networks depend on rights-of-way, social processes, etc. (as do roads, power lines) –Online purchases stimulate broad activity on logistics infrastructures (e.g. fuel, congestion) Positive spillovers as well (double-edged sword) –Sensing and monitoring of activities –Modeling of data to improve society –Hard to assess value of these

Carnegie Mellon Electricity Use of Networks CMU wired vs. wireless (with 2 CIT Sr Thesis) –Wired 100->1000 Megabits per second (Mbps) –Wireless (IEEE ): 5 Mbps now, 55 soon –Wired infrastructure ‘endpoints’ use 5-10x more electricity than wireless (and growing) –‘Network’ electricity 6-8% total, 1.7 kWh/square foot –Caveats: speeds, installation and maintenance requirements different –Wireless speed bump coming (10x) but electricity use expected go up only 50% –Relevance: more voice wireless than wired in the world

Carnegie Mellon Future Policy Issues Pricing Internet use like transport (congestion) –Encouraging growth but also managing Connecting the rest of the world: via wireless? –Most LDCs could be done at low ‘cost’ –Ad-hoc wireless networks vs. telecom giants? If we go wireless - what to do with old wires? –Hard to transfer to LDCs –Supposed to be all fiber by now? 5x-10x more e-commerce (not marginal) –Congestion, costs if more trucks and planes needed Social dispersion (don’t need to live near work)

Carnegie Mellon Future ICT Scenarios Demand for data bandwidth and technology –Generally doubles every year (Odlyzko) Wireless: catching up with installed wired speeds –Also: allows deployment in harsh geographies, less- developed countries, new applications –Changing infrastructure needs of ‘cells’ (5 -> 0.01 km 2 ) Optical: currently have optical ‘glut’ –Both overbuilding, wavelength technologies Home networking (Voice-IP, DSL/cable, wireless) Distributed computing (i.e. idle cycle sharing)

Carnegie Mellon Conclusions ICT/elec growing rapidly, becoming more pervasive –Growing at a rate much higher than average –High economic value makes it an unlikely target Assessing ICT impacts requires knowledge and management of infrastructures ‘Systems analysis’ paradigm extended to digital infrastructures –LCA and other tools helpful in doing this Infrastructure management increasingly aware of interdependencies

Carnegie Mellon Another Take: Transport Energy Fuels from Vehicles => 28 E 9 TJ Energy consumed making cars: 1.9 E6 TJ Energy Consumed building highways: 1.4 E6 TJ Energy consumed repairing highways: 0.6 E6 TJ