Scenario: Energy-intensive Energy Saving?

Christina B. Class, Carsten Trinitis, & Nikolas Becker

Lisa and Martin met in college and have been inseparable ever since. Both majored in computer science in teacher education programs. Martin’s minor was biology, and Lisa’s was physics. Now, five years later, they work together for the start-up SchoolWithFun. The company was founded by their mutual friend from college, Andreas, and specializes in developing digital curricular materials for high schools. Materials are developed and designed for classroom use. For the natural sciences, lesson plans include simulations. Materials are optimized for use with tablets that the school provides for students.

From the beginning, the founders of SchoolWithFun have prioritized keeping the ecological footprint of their activities to a minimum. So they rented office space in a new construction building (ÖkOffice) equipped with energy-efficient smart home technology. In addition to energy-efficient insulation, triple pane windows, and solar panels for heating and hot water, the building is decked out with all sorts of smart technologies that can be conveniently controlled by cellphones using a customized mobile app.

This enables them to control heating and lights, which are automatically activated only when people are in the building. This can be fine-tuned as needed so that every device connected to an electrical outlet is only activated when it’s in use. Rent on SchoolWithFun’s office space is paid using cryptocurrency because it’s more convenient for the owner—ÖkOffice, a conglomerate with multiple office-space holdings worldwide. ÖkOffice is vested in promoting digital currencies because they guarantee anonymity, just like cash.

Lisa and Martin are both vegetarians, primarily vegan, and they try to minimize their ecological footprint in their private lives as well. To them, they attend—if possible—the weekly demonstrations sponsored by the Fridays-for-Future movement. After last Friday’s demonstration, they discussed it with a nature conservancy organization BUND representative. The guy hands them a flyer about energy consumption and digital technologies, specifically smart homes and the Internet of Things (IoT). The flyer cites a study conducted by BUND and co-sponsored by the German Ministry of Environmental Protection: “Networking existing products can lead to a considerable increase in consumption of energy and resources. Across Europe, this could amount to an additional 709TWkh of energy consumption per year and up to 26kWh per appliance. This is largely due to standby energy consumption in networked standby mode.” [1].

The article piqued their interest, so they downloaded it. They wanted to determine how much this applied to their supposedly resource-saving office. All energy-consuming appliances must be networked and permanently in receive mode to minimize power-on hours.

While sitting on their balcony having a beer, Lisa and Martin begin calculating the energy consumption of their office space based on data they found online. The numbers were horrific…they looked at each other in shock. Should they bring it up with Andreas? He was so happy to find office space with ÖkOffice. Suddenly, Martin throws his hand up to his head and says, “The rent! We’re paying ÖkOffice the rent in cryptocurrency! Do we have any idea how energy-intensive that is?” They quickly pull up loads of information about cryptocurrencies and energy consumption. They stare at each other in silence…

A year later, the two are back on their balcony and talking about the smart home equipment at their office. Last year, they only decided to speak with Andreas about the cryptocurrency problem. Today, though, the topic of smart home technology has come up at the office. Andreas just happened to find out that the Chinese manufacturer of their components, “EasySmart,” went bankrupt a month ago. So, contrary to what they were promised in marketing brochures, there is no guarantee that their devices will be provided with the necessary security updates in the coming years.

Now Andreas is concerned about the security of SchoolWithFun’s IT. He plans to replace all their smart home components with new models from a different manufacturer next week. Lisa agrees with Andreas’s plan based on her intensive experience with IT security in college. At all costs, they must prevent hackers from gaining access to their internal network, where all their clients’ data is stored, among other things. But Martin disagrees. He thinks replacing scarcely a year-old devices will contribute to the already out-of-control mountains of electronic waste. Besides, who would want to hack into the system of their small business? It’s not so urgent that all the equipment needs to be replaced. After the two had argued about it for over an hour, Lisa resigned. She pours herself another beer. “This smart home stuff has been nothing but trouble,” she sighs.

References:

1. Hintemann, R. & Hinterholzer, S. (2018). Smarte Rahmenbedingungen für Energie- und Ressourceneinsparungen bei vernetzten Haushaltsprodukten. Borderstep Institut für Innovation und Nachhaltigkeit gGmbH, Berlin (sponsored by the German Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety).

Questions:

1. Electronic devices consume energy and resources not only when they are in use but also when they are produced. How much thought are users expected to put into this idea?

2. The smart home promises to save energy by only turning on the heat or lights as needed. At the same time, though, the smart home depends on sensors and other control elements powered by electricity. How should a cost-benefit analysis be made? Who should be involved?

3. New versions of operating systems and software with enhanced performance and memory requirements make it necessary to purchase new devices even though the old ones are still functional. Are there things we can do to counteract this? How can we preserve resources? How much do our economic cycles depend on the regular replacement of devices? Are there alternatives that also guarantee the retention of jobs along with longer product life cycles?

4. Smart home appliances are mini-computers. Like smartphones and laptops, they require periodic software updates. But whose job is it to ensure these appliances are operating with the latest software versions? How much trust can we place in the manufacturers?

5. Digital currencies are practical because they facilitate anonymous payment. But they also facilitate tax fraud. Is that a reason to ban them?

6. Here is a press release about the energy consumption involved with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin: “Zum Energieverbrauch der Kryptowährung Bitcoin”: https://www.tum.de/nc/die-tum/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/details/35498/. Considering how much energy consumption is involved in every cryptocurrency transaction, is it reasonable to use it to enhance the private sector? What should take priority here: the private sector or energy efficiency?

Published in Informatik Spektrum 43(2), 2020, S. 159-161, doi : 10.1007/s00287-020-01256-5

— Translated from German by Lillian M. Banks