Reduction of Electricity Consumption and CO₂ Emissions by Introduction of Information Technology (IT)

Comparative Case Studies for Music Distribution via Internet and Compact Disk (CD)

Abstract

Electricity consumption in the Internet, electronic network, in Japan was calculated with statistics for 1998. Methodologies to allocate the electricity consumption to each service provided by Internet were proposed. Then, electricity consumption and CO₂ emissions associated with downloading 1 CD of music by Internet, especially, using dialup, were investigated. In addition, CO₂ emissions associated with distributing 1 CD of music by ordinal compact disc were investigated and compared with those by Internet. CO₂ emissions for downloading 1 CD of music by Internet were dependent on transmission speed, 0.79kg-CO₂ if the communication speed is 64kbps (actual throughput: 51 kbps), and 0.16kg-CO₂ if the communication speed is 1.5Mbps (actual throughput: 1.2Mbps). On the other hand, it was calculated that CO₂ emissions for distributing 1 CD of music by ordinal compact disc was 0.33kg-CO₂. CO₂ emissions for downloading 1 CD of music by Internet will be reduced further with the increase in transmission speed.