Surprise! Digital Downloads Have Bigger Carbon Footprint Than Most Discs

[Fanghawk]

Surprise! Digital Downloads Have Bigger Carbon Footprint Than Most Discs

Retail games were thought to have a bigger carbon footprint than digital downloads, but new research suggests that's not usually the case.

The games industry has been making <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/no-right-answer/9070-Best-Video-Game-Format-Physical-vs-Digital>a huge push towards digital distribution lately, and while it's not always stated, environmental issues are a factor. There's a significant carbon footprint attached to creating millions of DVD and Blu-ray discs and shipping them to retailers, so common sense says digital downloads would trim that somewhat. Now a study published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology confirms this is true... as long as your download size is below 1.3 gigabytes. As soon as you cross that threshold, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/11560-How-Massive-is-Wolfenstein-The-New-Order>which almost every modern game does, you risk leaving behind a bigger carbon footprint than if you'd just picked it up from a Gamestop.

For the purposes of this study, researchers focused on the footprints of PlayStation 3 titles released in the United Kingdom. Emissions were then calculated from gameplay, production, and distribution, while retail and digital delivery methods were compared.

From the results, researchers noticed two thresholds: Game files below 1.3 GB had lower emissions when downloaded instead of purchased on disc. However, game files over 4.5 GB had lower overall emissions when distributed via Blu-Ray. At that point, the energy expended to download a game surpasses the fraction of energy spent making and distributing discs in bulk. For context, the average PS3 game is 8.8GB.

Any game sized between these thresholds carries too much uncertainty to determine how energy use is allocated, but this may not be especially significant. Only one of 2010's top ten selling games fell into that range (Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit at 4.5 GB) while the rest fell outside of it. Considering that increasing file sizes continue to be an upward trend, we probably won't see top selling games back in that range anytime soon.

In fairness, the researchers admit there are a lot of factors to consider before applying these results broadly. For example, the life cycle of used games simply cannot be tracked, so the study had to limit itself to individual users. It also doesn't account for energy sources of non-UK nations; some are turning towards sustainable energy while others, like the US, still rely heavily on coal sources. That being said, it's probably worth knowing that a tipping point for downloaded games exists, especially <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/criticalintel/10478-Full-Steam-Ahead-How-Digital-Will-Kill-the-Disc>as the digital distribution machine moves forward.

Source: <a href=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12181/full>Journal of Industrial Ecology

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[Leonardo Huizar]

That is a surprise indeed. I never figured that streaming complete games would do that kind of environmental effect.

Maybe be a good idea in a few years to bring back mini disks

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Irrelevant when you consider coal, vehicles that run on gas and whatnot. Let's do away with those first.

 

[Lightknight]

Ok... the difference is anywhere from .59 kg CO2/kWh less per game to 5 kg CO2/kWh more per game.

Does anyone know if these numbers matter? Are these significant? As far as I can tell, a 100 Watt bulb run 4 hours a day for a year and hits 100 kg CO2/kWh. So if a 40 GB game is 3 more kg CO2/kWh, what does that mean in any scheme? Even at the 5 kg rate I'd have to download 20 LARGE games in a year just to hit the one bulb mark for that year.

I... just don't think this is a problem and I'm the asshole that replaced all my bulbs with the 13 Watt replacements.

 

[ShirowShirow]

Huh. That's... Surprising.

Not going to go change my buying habits anytime soon but it's a reminder of how many factors get thrown into every decision we make.

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

Someone please explain how these numbers make any sort of sense. I find it almost impossible to believe that downloading even, say, a 10 GB file could have anywhere near the carbon footprint of creating a disk, burning it (which seems like it would take more energy than downloading all by itself, since you're basically "downloading" the file to a disk either way), and transporting it to the end user (at which point it again gets "downloaded" to the machine).

I must be missing something, but I'm not sure what. Transmission costs? Hosting costs? Could disks be stamped somehow rather than burned?

 

[Someone Depressing]

Huh, that's unexpected, to say the least.

Guess I'll have to take some responsibility and get physical copies instead of being an asshole who hates mother nature.

I still don't understand how on Earth that makes sense, though. I'll have to do some research and see if there's any more information on the subject.

 

[wooty]

Depends how crap your internet connection is. Your PC/console could be running and burning energy all day just to download one game.

I guess that could factor into it....

 

[nathan-dts]

Doesn't matter. Carbon emissions can be offset. People having mountains of plastic cases in their homes requires the continuous manufacturing of new materials.

 

[PunkRex]

That's cool, I like my physical media anyways.

 

[halethrain]

The author of this research works for Sony. Probably why the article doesn't mention all the Polypropylene packaging needs to be recycled, which costs energy. Not to mention the source of energy is very important when talking about the environment. What if the digital distribution center is running on mostly renewable sources? It's an increasingly common use-case for large data centers, as energy costs tend to eat up the budget. The scope is just far too narrow in this research to provide any real insight.

 

[ilupir]

Someone please explain how these numbers make any sort of sense.

Okay.

When you're downloading anything, you have to consider just how much traffic you're generating. The data has to go through several relays to get from the server to you. Now, the data itself won't be very costly, however, the demand that you (and your fellow gamers) are creating by downloading the games requires the internet relays to become bigger and bigger (at least in computing power).

As a sort of comparison, a communications engineer told me last year, that simply typing a single word into Google, and the resulting, will cost enought energy to bring a cup of water to a boil. (As this was something he told me, I haven't got a source, sorry)

 

[direkiller]

Someone please explain how these numbers make any sort of sense. I find it almost impossible to believe that downloading even, say, a 10 GB file could have anywhere near the carbon footprint of creating a disk, burning it (which seems like it would take more energy than downloading all by itself, since you're basically "downloading" the file to a disk either way), and transporting it to the end user (at which point it again gets "downloaded" to the machine).

I must be missing something, but I'm not sure what. Transmission costs? Hosting costs? Could disks be stamped somehow rather than burned?

Simply put, the amount of additional time you leave a console on when downloading a game(+ running servers servers and such), puts out more carbon then burning a game to a disk and delivering it to a retail store.

 

[Fanghawk]

The author of this research works for Sony.

Which author? You mean Amanda Webb? Because her biography says she's with the University of Surrey and studying energy use at Sony, not that she's an employee. Plus she's not the head writer on this study.

Or did you mean someone else?

 

[medv4380]

I can't agree with the study because it sets the upper bound electrical usages for a single Gigabyte at 1 kWh for the server room. That's dedicating an entire server to just one single solitary download. At least they set the lower bound at 0.

They also set the minimum energy cost of my router at 0.3 kWh or 300 Wh. I can get 1 Gigabyte in 15 minutes as congestion permits. Do they think that my router takes 1200 watts? Even my PS3 might only be 200 watts when it's really working, but just doing an idle background download it's going to be a lot lower, and lower still if I had a slim.

Something's not right with their numbers.

 

[Jeroenr]

Interesting indeed.
But how do they split it up in to single games?
And was electricity used by the store/warehouse and the ride to the store or UPS delivery taken in account? (again how)

 

[direkiller]

Someone please explain how these numbers make any sort of sense.

Okay.

When you're downloading anything, you have to consider just how much traffic you're generating. The data has to go through several relays to get from the server to you. Now, the data itself won't be very costly, however, the demand that you (and your fellow gamers) are creating by downloading the games requires the internet relays to become bigger and bigger (at least in computing power).

As a sort of comparison, a communications engineer told me last year, that simply typing a single word into Google, and the resulting, will cost enought energy to bring a cup of water to a boil. (As this was something he told me, I haven't got a source, sorry)

Me thinks he was talking crap, not a little crap mind you, like supper mega crap.

They actually give the upper and lower bounds of energy use transmitting data.
it's .5-1.5 KWH/GB
KWH is equal to 3,600,000 joules and it takes 334,400 joules to bring a cup of water to boil from freezing.
So unless typing a word into Google takes up more room then most term papers he is wrong.

 

[direkiller]

I can't agree with the study because it sets the upper bound electrical usages for a single Gigabyte at 1 kWh for the server room. That's dedicating an entire server to just one single solitary download. At least they set the lower bound at 0.

They also set the minimum energy cost of my router at 0.3 kWh or 300 Wh. I can get 1 Gigabyte in 15 minutes as congestion permits. Do they think that my router takes 1200 watts? Even my PS3 might only be 200 watts when it's really working, but just doing an idle background download it's going to be a lot lower, and lower still if I had a slim.

Something's not right with their numbers.

It's your understanding of the units.

A KWH is a measurement of energy not of work. So convert it to joules if you are having a hard time understanding it.
A KWH is 3.6 Megajoules

 

[Vivi22]

Now if we switched as many areas as possible to nuclear like we should have done decades ago, and France has already done, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Baresark]

Interesting. It's fun if not at all useful. The only sure fire way to reduce your carbon footprint is to stop using technology at all. Last I checked, the Amish don't have a particularly large carbon footprint. But interestingly, there is no way to have no carbon footprint.