The green issues of tomorrow

Over a hundred global leaders and several thousand representatives of various countries have gathered in Glasgow for the COP26 Climate Change Conference to thrash out new national targets and commitments that will keep the world from warming up dangerously over the next two decades. The debates over the next two weeks will focus on reducing the use of fossil fuels, cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing the world’s carbon sinks.

Even while these efforts are underway, new threats to the environment are cropping up. Some of these have not received the attention they should, while others are often brushed under the carpet because of their importance to the digital economy. Let us take a look at three such issues that will have huge consequences for the environment in the coming decades.

Giant data centres: As the world gets increasingly digitised, data centres and server farms are proliferating. All computers consume energy and generate heat. But few people realise just how much energy is consumed and heat is generated by the humongous data centres that Big Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Facebook use. Millions of litres of water are often required to keep them cool, particularly if the data centres are not set up in extremely cold regions.

For some time now, researchers have been trying to get accurate estimates of the energy and water consumption of data centres in the US and in Europe but have only managed some approximations. In the rest of the world, this problem is not even discussed much.

Unless steps are taken now to reduce the energy consumption of data centres and adopt water replenishment strategies, this could become the biggest threat over the next half a decade. Many regions where big data centres are located are already water stressed and their problems could get worse. Luckily, some of the biggest technology companies that also depend on humongous data centres are trying to become water neutral or positive as part of their efforts to find solutions to the problem. Most are also spending money to find ways to make data centres more energy efficient. As always, it is a race to find a solution before the problem becomes too big to handle.

The carbon footprint of solar: Solar energy has become the great hope of countries, companies and even individuals trying to reduce dependence on thermal power. Wind and hydro energy or even nuclear power never quite lived up to the hopes of clean energy crusaders. On the other hand, solar energy generation has taken off faster than many imagined. The sharp fall in prices of solar panels has played a role in the popularity of solar power. Solar panels are now being set up everywhere, from the rooftop to giant solar energy farms in deserts and floating platforms in the sea.

The issue is that most of the world’s cheap solar panels come from China where companies have largely depended on thermal power for their manufacturing facilities. This is changing and many companies are now starting to use cleaner energy sources, but the problem is not going away in a hurry.

Producing solar panels using cleaner energy sources also increases their costs, thus creating a dilemma for policymakers. Solar energy only becomes a viable alternative to dirty fuels when costs come down sufficiently. If costs start rising, the decision becomes far more economically difficult to make.

The recycling problem: Scientists and governments were quite late to wake up to the plastic recycling issue. It is something for which they have still not found a satisfactory solution. Over the next decade, they will need to grapple with the recycling issue of discarded solar panels, wind turbines and an increasing mountain of electronic waste.

It is a problem that all major countries have talked about. Few have actually done anything about any of these. Sure there are policies that almost every major country has about recycling of e-waste but facilities have yet to catch up with requirement. Once upon a time, rich countries would send their e-wastes to poorer countries but now increasingly the latter are declining to become dump yards for e-waste. At the same time, the amount of e-waste that needs to be treated and recycled is increasing exponentially. Over the next decade, the problem of recycling solar panels will become a huge issue. The average lifespan of a solar panel is 25 years, but their efficiency starts declining much earlier. Quite often they are replaced after a decade and a half. This was not a problem a decade ago when solar panels were not being installed at such a rapid pace. Over the next decade, it will become a major headache for all countries that have installed large solar power farms.

In wind energy, the problem will be less though it also requires attention. While most of the wind turbine can be recycled, the wind turbine blades end up in landfills.

Countries need to start thinking about solutions to these issues right away. Otherwise, a decade down the line, they will find that they are in a worse mess than ever.

The writer is former editor of Business Today and Businessworld and founder and editor of Prosaicview, an editorial consultancy