Infrastructure and Sustainability:
Prospective Effects of Information
and Communications Technologies
Dr. H. Scott Matthews
Carnegie Mellon University
1
ICT Economic Growth
• OECD Average ICT sector employment 4%
– Overall, most from EU/North America
• ICT sectors grew 50-100% from 1992-97
• Total value added 1.2 Trillion USD in 1997
• Significant and increasing investment levels
2
ICT and Productivity
• Productivity: Measure of output as (K,L)
• For many years, ICT investments made with no observed
macroeconomic effect
– Solow (1987): “See effects of ICT revolution everywhere except
productivity statistics”
• Finally, studies see ICT effects
– Example: Oliner (2000) suggests that ICT contributed 2/3 of total
productivity
– Result of cumulative investments but also networked systems
(internal and external)
• Clearly large economic benefits, what are “costs”?
– Energy and environmental effects
3
US and Global PC Demand
4
Summary Environmental Impacts
•
•
•
•
Majority of impacts are ‘indirect’
Products have short and decreasing lives
Rebound and scale effects are important
Use-phase energy may be significant
– Estimates of Internet elec use: 1-10%
– Sleep and standby mode power is large
– EC: 5-15% of all power consumed is standby
• End-of-life issues are large and increasing
– Over 1 billion PCs sold to date in world
5
Workshop 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
6
Other Important Issues
• Telework/telecommuting - land use issues
– Conflicting evidence about effect of T&T
• Continued trend towards miniaturization
– 2000 US sales of laptops up 22%, desktops 1%
– PDAs and handheld computers/dematerialisation
• Communications / network changes
– 100 million cell phone users in US
– Expected change to small ‘cells’ (5 -> 0.01 km2)
– Analog->Digital Television
• Smart Production Systems
7
U.S. Production Effects 1992-97
Effects
Total Supply Chain Purchas es [$ b illion]
Electricity Used [BkWh / TWh]
Conv. Pollutants Rele ased [thous . mt]
Fataliti es
Greenhou se Gases [MMTCE]
Ores Used [mi llion mt]
RCRA Wa ste Generated [milli on mt]
Toxic Releases and Transfers [thous . mt]
Weighted Toxics [thous . mt]
Manufacturing
1992
1997
160
270
20
39
300
620
20
50
30
50
12
20
2
4
60
110
500
900
Service
1997
544
46
910
100
70
12
3
70
500
Source: Matthews/OECD (2001)
Does not seem to be getting cleaner across supply chain
Computer service ‘consulting’ sector worse in some areas
8
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
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Office Building ICT Use
19 92
19 95
20 00
20 20*
To tal
(B kWh)
ICT share
ICT Tota l
(B kWh)
20 6
30 0
36 0
50 0
3%
5%
9%
15 %
6
15
32
70
Fl oorsp ace ICT Inte nsity
(Bil l sq ft)
(kWh/s q ft)
12
11
12
17
0.53
1.43
2.69
4.18
• 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
Sources: EIA CBECS (1992, 1999), Annual Energy Outlook 2002 [Commercial
electricity projected to increase 1.7% per year, commercial ICT 4% per year]
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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
11
Growth of Retail E-commerce
• ICT has spillover impacts to other sectors
– E.g. transportation, logistics management
• US DOC began measuring and reporting
retail e-commerce in March 2000
– 4Q 00 = $8.7 Billion, up 67% from 4Q 99
– 1% of all retail purchases [note $26B for 2000]
12
Summary Environmental Impacts
(per-book basis)
Trad. E-Com.
Energy (MJ)
125
105
Conventional Air (kg)
0.3
0.18
Hazardous Waste (kg)
0.24
0.19
8
7
Greenhouse Gas (kg)
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Online v. Traditional Retail
• Consider effects of buying/receiving books via ICTenabled systems
• ‘Total energy’ implications? Substitution?
• Primary difference is in front and back ends
–
–
–
–
Online ordering and delivery vs. shopping trip
Logistics similar in design, but less efficient
Inventory management efficiencies / returns
Reliance on single-packaged air instead of bulk packaged truck
14
Comparison of Freight Modes
90
80
70
60
Air
Truck
Rail
W ater
50
40
30
20
10
0
Cost (cents/tm )
Total Energy (TJ/$1M) Direct Energy (TJ/$M)
Source: Matthews et al, Transportation Research Record, 2002.
15
Comparison with Japanese book distribution industry estimated 2-5x less
energy use to deliver books (geographical and energy differences)
16
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)
17
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 km2)
• Optical: currently have optical ‘glut’
– Both overbuilding, wavelength technologies
• Home networking (Voice-IP, DSL/cable, wireless)
• Distributed computing (i.e. idle cycle sharing)
18
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
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