The big wireless companies are breathlessly promoting their new 5G technology which, they claim, will make our lives better in almost every way. It’s all about speed and latency (delay) – and if you believe the hype, they say it will be 100 times faster. Our cars will drive themselves, our doctors will perform surgery from a location thousands of miles away, and we will be able to endlessly entertain ourselves with wireless virtual reality headsets.
But wait, that’s not all. Promoters of 5G are claiming it will even address climate change by saving energy. According to the wireless industry, 5G technology will help reduce peak load on the grid, help engineers design new energy-saving technologies and help consumers implement energy-saving programs to reduce consumption or shift load to off-peak times.
I’m skeptical. Public support for the massive deployment of 5G has been waning. Homeowners don’t want 5G “small cell” antennas installed near their homes for fear of losing property value. Families with small children are opposing these antennas based on the large and growing body of peer-reviewed science linking long-term exposure to radiofrequency microwave radiation with an increased incidence of cancer and DNA breaks, among other serious health impacts.
It also turns out that there are real problems with the technology itself. The new higher frequencies and shorter millimeter and sub-millimeter waves don’t travel very far and are easily interrupted by trees, rain, walls, and windows. And while increasing the power can increase functionality, it can also significantly increase the dangers associated with exposure.
So it’s not surprising that purveyors of the technology are doing everything they can to put lipstick on the 5G pig. There is broad public support for addressing climate change, and if 5G can be part of our energy and climate change solution, great. The problem is, there is accumulating data that shows this not to be the case.
First, let’s look at the real reason behind the rush to 5G. It’s not for first responders. It’s not for better cell phone reception. It’s not for national security. The rush to 5G is about streaming video. The wireless companies are hoping you’ll cut your fiber-optic cable (which, by the way, is always going to be faster, safer and more secure than any 5G connection) and buy your monthly video subscription from them instead!
Industry analysts predict that in just a few years, up to 90 percent of web traffic will be for video, including high definition and even 3-D. High definition video requires an amazing amount of data to work. Every frame of video has millions of bits of information, and it takes a fast connection to provide all that data to your device so you can watch video.
It also requires a massive amount of storage space somewhere on the planet to house all of that data, ready to stream to consumers on demand. To meet this rapidly growing demand, data centers are proliferating across the globe, burning prolific amounts of energy to keep systems running. There are over 500,000 data centers worldwide, 390 of which are considered hyper-scale. The largest in the world is located in China and operated by Range International Information Group. The center occupies 6.3 million sq. ft. of space, which makes it about the same size as the Pentagon in Washington D.C.
According to the U. S. Department of Energy, data centers are some of the biggest energy hogs on earth, consuming 10 to 50 times the energy of a typical commercial office building. Data centers require lots of electricity to power their servers, storage equipment, backups, and power cooling infrastructure. Servers need to be kept cool to operate efficiently, and cooling alone can comprise up to 40 percent of electricity usage in a modern data center.
A recent article in Forbes Magazine reported that in 2016, data centers used more than 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, requiring roughly 34 giant, 500-megawatt coal-powered plants. Across the globe, data centers used roughly 416 terawatts, nearly 40 percent more than the entire United Kingdom. And, according to the article’s author, Naveen Joshi, this consumption will double every four years.
So given that the deployment of 5G will dramatically increase the amount of data required to provide every consumer each of his or her devices with the music, photos, documents, movies, audiobooks, podcasts and whatever comes next, how can it possibly be that the next generation of wireless known as 5G will reduce, rather than increase, our power needs?
The obvious answer, of course, is that it can’t and won’t. We have a climate crisis and an energy crisis. We need stronger leaders who are willing to take the issue on. We need manufacturers and engineers to make better, more efficient products. And we all need to learn to live in a way that harmonizes with our current world in crisis.
