Digital Footprint revisited

Wikipedia has an entry for digital footprint (and even subcategorizes to "active" and "passive") explaining basically the idea is that you have an online presence if you are an internet user. In fact, a 2007 report states that 47% of users have searched for themselves online and you can even download digital footprint calculator software.



I was wondering if there is any thought out there regarding digital footprints in the environmental carbon footprint context. I have noted (through following a number of edubloggers on my RSS) that like minded people tend to follow each other and as a result tend to do a lot of cutting and pasting of one blog posting into another. This is my first example of what I am calling "blogarithmic" expansion. A theory I am putting forward that eventually megawatts of electricity will be required world wide to run servers (well mostly fans cooling servers) to store yottabytes of repetitious information. That will add up in terms of energy costs.

In a related matter, to those of us asking our students to contribute and collaborate in online projects by blogging, and wikis and nings etc. Are we deleting this information when finished? Or at least extracting and archiving relevant info to more energy friendly storage areas to free up server space. Hmmm!! (I am not going to even try to debate if the manufacture and burning of a DVD is more energy efficient than keeping that same amount of information on a HDD).