From data centres, to phones, to modems, to mobile towers, to intercontinental fibre optic cables spanning the globe... it takes a lot of energy to keep the internet running all over the world, for millions of people, 24/7. Our beloved internet has an environmental cost, and it’s pretty big. 

As the technology develops and the way we use the internet changes, there are big questions we need to ask about containing the energy consumption of the internet from the rare earth metals in smart phones, to the travel of information and the enormous data centres that hold the pages of the world wide web. What is the "internet of things" proposed for the future and do we want it?

Guests: Kerry Hinton and Fatima Jalali from the Centre for Energy Efficient Telecommunications at the University of Melbourne.

This episode was first broadcast during January 2015.