The Internet's Energy Bill

It is easy to overlook some of the energy costs associated with our daily lives.  We pay close attention to the energy required by our car and home climate control as the consumption occurs directly before us, and the use hits our wallets hard.  Until recently, I had never thought about the energy costs associated with internet use.

I am not referring to the energy used by my home computer when accessing the internet – we are all well aware of this.  I am actually referring to the land-based processors that my server calls upon when using the internet.  It turns out that the amount of energy consumed by these massive centers is anything but negligible.  But, as these facilities are located so far from us, we give no thought the energy they consume.

The other reason we think nothing of the cost of the processors called upon for web-surfing is because we do not foot that bill.  These energy costs find their way to the companies that are responsible for the processing, and no company processes more than Google.

Every time you conduct a search on Google’s engine, processors far away crunch some numbers very quickly to yield millions of results for you and organize them in terms of relevance.  This processing comes at a cost: there is no such thing as a free search.

One percent of all power produced on Earth is consumed by internet processing centers.  That is comparable to the entire consumption of a small to medium-sized developed country.  The piece of the power plant pie devoted to internet processing is expected to grow significantly over the coming decades.  As such, companies like Google pay close attention to the cost of a kW-hr in the regions where they plan on setting up shop.

Our access to and sharing of information via the internet is a precious commodity that we often take for granted.  Those of us who are more environmentally conscious may become more selective about our internet use, as the link between energy use and global warming is well-known.  As for Google, I have a suggestion on how to save them a few Joules here and there: Do we really need millions of search results?

A Quick Farewell to the Shuttle

In a matter of days, Atlantis will return from its final visit to the International Space Station (ISS).  Its return to Earth will represent the end of the American Space Shuttle Program.

It is fair to say that to this point, man has merely "dabbled" in space.  Man has seen very little of space, and only a small number of men and women have reached altitudes beyond our atmosphere.  Still, the shuttle program is the most impressive dabbling we have done to date, and we have NASA to thank for it.

Atlantis and its sister ships (Endeavour, Discovery, Challenger, and Colombia)  have been shuttling astronauts to and from the ISS on a regular basis like tourists to a far-out hotel.  In so doing, man has maintained a continuous presence in orbit, and have developed the ISS into a humble home.  The ISS is like a high tech country house, but one further off the beaten path than that of The Shining.

Over the coming years, America will need to hitch a ride on another nation's ship to access the ISS: the Russian Soyuz spacecraft is the only one that can carry a crew.  There are several other Russian, Japanese, and European ships that can shuttle supplies to the ISS.

In its storied history, the shuttle program saw many highs and lows.  The 1986 and 2003 disasters of Challenger (lift-off) and Colombia (re-entry) claimed the lives of 14 astronauts collectively.  The fact that 2 out of the 135 flights that the various shuttles took ended in disaster illustrates how dangerous manned spaceflight truly is.

In addition to being dangerous, the shuttle program has been expensive: 200 billion US dollars in total.  A typical transit (with return) to the ISS costs 500 million US dollars.  Given the current economic woes plaguing the United States along with most other nations, man's presence in space may begin to dwindle over time.

The retirement of the space shuttle severely diminishes man's access to space.  Imagine the mess an island city would be in if its most popular bridges were suddenly closed with no plans to build new ones (my local Montreal readers can relate to this circumstance).

Our Orbital Junkyard

The expression “Out of sight – out of mind” is often used to rationalize why people are comfortable contributing massive amounts of trash to their local landfills.  The issue of tossing out our junk is easily ignored, as the landfill is not in our backyard.  If it were, the amount of junk tossed by the average person would decrease drastically.

A little farther from our local landfill, tons upon tons of waste that does not make it to a designated land disposal site eventually floats to an undesignated water-based one.  Sadly, 20% of the Styrofoam that is produced finds its way into the ocean, where it slowly decomposes over hundreds of years.  Unbelievably, square kilometres of the stuff are floating in certain locales of our hydrosphere.  If this insult to our environment were floating in a lake in your neighbourhood, it would be hard to ignore.  As it floats hundreds of miles away, it is out of mind.

It is not surprising then that man continues to fill yet another of its reservoirs with waste: our orbital environment.  To quote the film Wall-E, “There’s plenty of space up in space!”  Indeed, what could be a better place to store our junk?  The space beyond our atmosphere is plentiful, and it is most certainly out of sight – unless of course you happen to be aboard the international space station, in which case even small space debris poses a life-threatening risk.

What is meant by space junk?

Most objects that orbit the Earth began on Earth.  While hundreds of satellites are currently operational, thousands of them are decommissioned.  Once satellites are no longer used, they are not physically brought down from orbit, as to do so is prohibitively expensive. 

Beyond our atmosphere there is no drag force, no fluid to push up against.  In a car, boat, train or plane, it is expensive to thrust forward, but free to press the brakes.  In space, slowing down by 100 m/s is just as expensive as speeding up by 100 m/s.  For this reason, satellites that are placed in orbit remain there indefinitely – all satellites are destined to be space junk eventually.

Newton's Second Law (Life as a Mass on an Inclined Plane)

The motion of a mass on an inclined plane is perhaps the most classic introductory mechanics problem.  Over the years, as a student, and then later as a physics teacher, I have analyzed more than my fair share of these kinds of scenarios.  I must admit, as an engineer, I have yet to encounter a problem of this type in the field – I have never been asked to design a block or inclined plane, nor have I been asked to verify whether Newton’s 3+ Century-old laws still apply to it.

Do I think all of the time that physics students spend examining masses on inclined planes is wasted?  Of course not – the simple scenario clearly illustrates the most important law of mechanics (Newton’s Second Law), and is a necessary stepping stone towards analyzing more complex situations.  

There is, I believe, a secondary usefulness to examining such systems that extends beyond the practical realm.  Let us take a close look at a mass as it slides up or down a banked surface; I contend that it serves as a powerful metaphor for life.

I know what you are thinking: this guy has drawn one too many free body diagrams.  Correct.

A Scientific Road Map

Science is my favourite realm of study.  Although physics is the branch that I am most comfortable with, I find science as a whole very fascinating.  It seems to me that science can be broken down into five categories: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and sociology – in that order.

How do these five pillars relate to one another?  What is their connection?  Consider the following simple organizational chart.

A Scientific Road Map

Christopher Hitchens on God and Religion

The real “miracle” is that we, 

who share genes with the original bacteria that began life on the planet, 

have evolved as much as we have.            

- Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great

After reading an article of mine, which discussed God’s role in the universe, a friend recommended that I read the work of Christopher Hitchens.  He is an intellectual, a journalist, and a proud atheist.  He famously enters debates with religious leaders or advocates, and clearly comes out ahead (a quick YouTube search will confirm as much).  On top of having a sharp mind, he has a cunning wit, and does not hold back for fear of insulting those on the other side of the debate, or those who watch such debates intently.

I recently came upon Hitchens’ 2007 book, “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”.  It turns out that Hitchens is every bit as forward as a writer as he is as a speaker.  He devotes nearly the entire book to debunking various religious myths; from west to east, no religion is spared.  The theme throughout is the notion that freedom of thought and expression have been repressed by barbaric religious leaders throughout mankind’s history, and it is time that such bullying come to an end.

Summer School

In the month of June, as most students are beginning to think about summer camp, or a temporary job, some students are beginning a new semester of school.  Whether they are retaking a failed class or trying to get ahead in their studies, summer school is not how most adolescents would like to spend their summer.

I have an unusually high interest in the notion of summer school this year because, for the first time, I will be teaching a class during these hot months.

Summer courses are much like fall or winter courses.  The classrooms are the same, but tend to have fewer students in them, and are filled with much hotter air.  Most institutions I know of, mine included, have no air conditioning.  I plan on wearing sandals to work. 

I suppose the main difference between regular semester courses and summer ones is that students sitting in class during the summer do not want to be there.  Let me rephrase that ... However much a student wants to be in a classroom under normal circumstances, they want to be there in the summer less.

Electric Cars Alone Solve Nothing

There was a time when, in my view, the subject of this article would have seemed too trivial to bother with – how naive I was.  Thanks in large part to misinformation campaigns by oil pushers, the public at large remains grossly oblivious to climate change issues. 

When false science permeates the media it leads to confusion among many, which can lead to frustration on their part.  The long-term consequence of misinformation is an apathetic society.  Apathy is a sad but accurate description of how a large proportion of the North American population feel about climate change.

The electric car on its own is not really a green solution.  Traditional gas-guzzling cars have internal combustion engines that convert fossil fuels into energy to power them, while outputting significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the process.  Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so-named because it transforms the Earth’s surface into a greenhouse, trapping sunlight in, and gradually causing the surface temperature to increase.

What many fail to recognize is that an electric car, which requires no fuel, does require electrical energy; the first law of thermodynamics stipulates that the energy must come from somewhere.  Electric car batteries are charged by plugging them into the local electrical grid, like a cell phone battery.  The big question is then what powers your grid?  Globally, the answer is fossil fuels 70% of the time.  If you live in an area that is powered by coal for example, you are no further ahead environmentally by swapping for an electric vehicle.  You are simply diverting the CO₂ spewing from your car engine to your local power plant.

On the other hand, if you live in an area that gets its power from a non-fossil fuel source (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind...), then you are indeed reducing your carbon footprint effectively.  If you are in this 30% minority, you should commend your government for it.  If we are serious about curbing our carbon output, then as electric cars are phased onto our roads, fossil fuels must be phased out of energy production.

Are we Just Bags of Chemicals?

About two decades ago, I was taking the train home with a friend who looked at me, and asked a very direct question.  He said, "Steve, am I just a bag of chemicals?"  This friend was at the start of his studies at Medical School, so it is a reasonable thing to wonder.  Actually, it is a reasonable thing for any one of us to wonder.  His question struck me so hard that it never really left my brain.

 What am I?  There are many ways to answer this philosophical question, but let us take a scientific approach.

The universe is composed of indivisible building blocks.  An electron is one example of such a building block, and physicists today seek to find other yet unknown examples of such particles.  All matter in the universe is composed of atoms, which are composed of the aforementioned subatomic particles.  The over one hundred known elements (kinds of atoms) all originate in stars, where extremely high energy collisions occur between atoms.  These collisions cause atoms to fuse together to form bigger ones in a nuclear process known as fusion. 

Ninety nine percent of the fusion reactions in stars involve hydrogen and helium.  But, if not for the remaining 1% of collisions, which fill in the periodic table, there would of course be no carbon, and then, no organic matter, and no life.  Life is an unlikely and bewildering occurrence in so many ways.

Chemicals are combinations of atoms that have bonded together.  While there are only about one hundred known elements, there are millions of known chemicals, each with specific properties.

A person is an organism, which is composed of many systems, which are collections of organs, made up of tissues, which consist of cells.  The biological building blocks of a person are cells.  While cells are living matter, they are matter just the same; cells are made up of the atoms, whose origins lie not in the heavens, but in the stars.  I can thus state with no ounce of trepidation that I am composed entirely of atoms that were once upon a time within a star.  What a privilege it is to be alive at a time in history when I get to know that.

Hawking's Grand Design

I read Stephen Hawking’s most recent book, “The Grand Design” (co-authored by Leonard Mlodinow), and highly recommend it, particularly to those who have never read a Hawking non-fiction before.  My only negative comment is that the book is short.  Even a slow reader like me can complete it in just a few hours.  Hawking, the rock-star physicist that he is, always leaves me wanting more.

“The Grand Design” was not well-received by religious groups, as it points out that God is not necessary for the universe to exist.  This comes as no surprise, as religious groups are particularly displeased whenever arguments are based on observation and reason.