the incessant minute on d w. well, the in progress pop calls to everyone who wants to know more about the topic. the 2nd son about this story is beyond the headlines world in progress. the w talk costs know what days we shop online. watch movies online. work online, digitalization is everywhere, making our lives easier. but it needs energy, a lot of energy. today's data centers and cloud to global up around 3 percent of the electricity produced globally and consume more every year. so digitalization is not really sustainable or is it can digital

technologies also help us protect the environment and slow climate change? these questions and much more this week on dw science show. welcome to tomorrow. today the 2 months on top of the 70 sleet. as i go to work at the institute for ecological economy research in berlin, we meet them at the cities museum of technology, which is home to an exhibition called the network about the history of modern communication, analog systems they've given way to digital. once the birth of the internet drove digitalization forward at a frenetic pace, and that's impacted the environment, i think you tell is equal photos of toys. utilize ation already accounts to 2 to 4 percent of the global c o. 2 emissions on about 10 percent of the global electricity consumption and my research group. once kai could,

i did that if the incident where a country it would rank stood world wide electricity demand after china on the us. that's because the net is much more than just a cloud of ones and zeros. in effect, detecting that to bottom line is that behind all these digital applications behind the data streams, they're also very concrete material. infrastructure is data centers, cables and of course all the devices and to get a to which are growing a number by the day. take smartphones, the majority of people have one these days and the average user buys a new phone every 3 years or so. and we're in general buying more and more devices that are meant to make our lives more intelligent, like those integrated into what are called smart homes. but just how climate friendly are those homes actually inside of homes. and that'd be great just to kind of show it in a connected home is with heating energy and maybe small control certainly can count the amount of energy use sites english by today. and by automatically reducing the

temperature in unused rooms for instance. or if the heating unit communicates with the windows. but even so overall smart homes are still under performing when it comes to saving energy until beams and fly in the one major problem is the launch number of additional pat. just devices that aren't designed to save energy, like surveillance cameras or smart tvs and speakers and this stuff hands it once you add them to the equation, the impact is no longer positive and independence mishma positive. you but also the main problem with over equipping with digital devices is that a piece of hardware is the ecological footprint is mostly dictated by its production mazda, then it's useless process. more conscious consumption would help. we should try to buy fewer devices, use them for longer, and pay more attention to whether they were designed with recycling in mind. the few of us do guns,

fish dish or to make devices most sustainable. it's crucial to use them longer. that means i'm having to be built to be more robust above all, with the modular unrepairable design. some companies have to both offer software updates and provide spare parts over the long term tyler titan. some campaign groups have called for a statutory right to repair an issue. the european union is looking into despite drawbacks and criticism. some applications really are helping us to live more sustainably like mobility. yeah, that's that help you get from a to be in a climate friendly way for those that enable you to trade items or buy used products instead of always purchasing new ones. streaming video is for hours on end, however, is problematic. an estimated 3 and a half 1000000000 people now regularly watch videos online. that's almost half of

the world's population. streaming streaming already account. so 60 to 70 percent of the global data. yvonne, you can transfer williams hours. one way to make streaming a bit more sustainable is to turn down the resolution, especially on smaller display fewer pixels means less power consumed in the data centers that drives the network world. and they've offered duke energy consumption for things like cloud computing data centers and network infrastructure is old rising rapidly in the front. that region, for example, the cities international. apple is no longer the top consumer of energy. he thought the data center, those offices, and then according to estimates they are now responsible for around 20 percent of the cities. total power consumption to mine missing today to send as urgent need need to become truly climate neutral. so sourcing electricity from renewable energy

sources and not just selling indulgences to compensations. yeah. and to show up last time plus funded son needed to ensure more chopping of waste heat from data centers and what stood servers warm up as they were and have to be cold. but the resulting waste heat could itself be used according to the association of the internet industry by 2030. the waste heat from all of frank for its data centers would be enough to in series heat the entire city. but in practice, its potential has barely been tapped so far. the infrastructure is usually lacking . but there are a pilot projects in the works and the future waste heat from one of the city's largest data centers will be siphoned off the heat. a new housing developments. now that's a really smart use of digitalization. another smart idea is heating with water. for millennia,

people have used the power of moving water to grind green and fuel gate fields. nowadays, we also generate electricity with hydro power plants. and one river in central germany is now being harnessed directly to heat homes. the wide else, the river, and the german state of julian has energy, good law hidden in its waters. and not just the kind that's able to keep the wheels of this meal running. engineer ingle miller has installed a heat exchanger in this channel running through the mail. the river water is used to walnut, the mixture of brian and water flowing through the pipes to provide heating says the brian water mix from the heat pump that flows through these pipes or sometimes minus 2 degrees. when it arrives, as it moves through the heat, exchangers warmed up to one degree ink, and that temperature difference enables us to produce up to 60 degrees as soon as i

caught a quarter till like in geothermal heating the brian with a mixture that's been boned by the rid of water is vaporized, then transported in case useful to a high efficiency heat pump. these guys fly squeezed this vapor, and this generates heat like with a bicycle air pump. so at the front it warms up when you pump. it looks well for the system to look the reasonable to con, dry up on the white l sta and upstream down guarantees and minimum flow even in dry summers. the device now installed in the river hates the mill and the accompanying house. oh no, i'll put you down. that isn't worried about his neck stating bill it is my house is really cozy. now if i were to heat with oil or gas, the cost is with the astronomical for me. i couldn't afford it. condition is beside

currently, almost everyone in this community hates which fossil fuels, but that's set to change. move or the heat exchanger has already been planned for municipal buildings. since that's where you put it right here with this is a really suitable spot like this is the goal is for the river to one day provide renewable energy for the entire town. and because most of the homeowners here on tuesday, i stick about the idea of the coughing, we buying grain, the hydrogen, and canada, then ship it over the ocean. we have everything we need right here. and stuff was a poll is hating with river water, a sound sustainable alternative. we ask an independent energy expert. so started. this is portrait that has some potential though it has the geographical limit as you need rivers and lakes and consumers close to those rivers and lakes. but we need to use every available option of use like you to look at. so not really a game changer, maybe not put in

a town 40 kilometers down stream. the technology is being applied on a larger scale, some 1200 apartments. he, it will soon be heated with river water. the setup is different. the concept behind the system remains the same mission, your muscle as the vice and it. so here we want to take water from the river and pump pitch to the power plant that will collect it so that we have a continuous water supply. and the power plant will, she goes through the heat pump and it can be used for heating heights looks okay. the pump from the river to the power plant will be 250 meters long. the district hating 5 to the 1st to the house will stretch another 300 meters push this understood the connected piping network. we can then supply many different residential units and bundled and move together, and it's been doing buttons and that's the process is designed to minimize

interference in the river. how they chopped. the water was return to the river after bonuses extracted by the heat pump. there are no chemicals added and no impact on existing waterway infrastructure. in theory, that makes the heating technology an option in conservation unplug protected areas to. but does it make economic sense to bite the money? because a greater distance from the water means higher engineering cause but it's more customers also sign up and it's definitely worth developing the river. these it will supply 650 house phones alone and this housing cooperative built into 19 sixty's. the 1st pipes have already been laid to connect the homes to the future of river water heating plant. let's see, let's. this is the last remaining gap from our 1st phase of construction, district eating pipes of already being late, and the hot water will then arrive here from the plant and be distributed through

the piles of hotel. you pull into rooms like this, still use gas bonus, but they'll send me equipped with small connection stations for calculating data and hating needs for individual households. as do you guys to talk about some of the central gap? so using systems were installed in the mid 19 ninety's office, and so it was clear that we needed to think about a new medium term solution. were then given the size of a cooperative, a solution for the entire district was of course, the most effective. the engineers are also thinking ahead in the future, they want to integrate waste heat into the system and to the is to bring more and more renewables into the heat map. so the system we want to implement next is a good one. we have a sewage plan next to the rivers and sewage plants generate warm from the waste heat that accumulates the end of this. we can use it for heating and by feeding it into the network via the heat policy. what do you?

but i'm a pull the dentist inside switch. i'm surprised. on one moment it's removed from of a heated rivers. they cooled down slightly. so in an era of climate change, the plants and animals that live in them could also benefit. let us read why i want to learn more about technologies that could be used to protect the environment or do you have a science question of your own then send it in as a video, text or voice mail. if we answer you on here, we'll send you a little surprise as a thank you. this week's question comes from our been an in panama, warsaw condensation trails. the con trails, the artificial clouds that for them from exhausted mission by jets, they appear as long streaks in the sky when airplanes fly up to set an altitude.

the perfect control forming zone is around 10 kilometers is up in the lowest layer of the atmosphere. right most via comprises 5 layers, the know the lowest is the troposphere, which stretches 7 total matches up at the pulse or on $1712.00 inches above the tropics. the temperature drops by about 6 degrees celsius, every kilometer of altitude, not the upper edge of the troposphere. it can get as cold as minus 60 degrees. ideal conditions for controls to form. when an croft bends fuel, it admits carbon dioxide and tiny particles of other compounds. but what so large quantities of bolts of 8 the h 2 a. these motion molecule is attached to the particles and immediate a freeze in the cold to form ice crystals. the

is humidity is also very high in the area. the condensation trails form even foster and remain visible for longer. the composition of con trails is very similar to this of natural cirrus clouds, both and made up device crystals and on to favorable conditions. they can just keep on growing and some situations they can create streaks of clouds that have several clutches, white cooled, con trail service clouts. these can temporarily cover up to 10 percent of the sky is a regions that see heavy traffic. research teams from various space agencies have spent is studying the effects of con trails on the climate. on the one hand clouds cool the surface by reflecting some of the sun's rays, but at the same time they prevent teach absorbed by the surface from radiation back into space. the research indicates the 2nd defect is stronger. so con trails also

saw the heat pump. the atmosphere, the over half the world's population now lives in cities by 2050. that proportion could be as high as 80 percent. but in climate terms, most cities get poor marks. there's precious little greenery on their crowded streets, which are packed with cars, exhaust fumes from vehicles, together with air conditioners and heating units pollute the air, and cities have an insatiable hunger for energy. could digital technologies make city smarter and in the process more energy efficient? there are many places around the world seeking to become smart cities. digital innovations could help make energy supply transport and administration more efficient and cities as a whole,

more livable because it doesn't automatically mean they'd be more climate friend. like a study looking at the danish capital, copenhagen reveals that most smart city innovations bring negligible benefits. one technology, however, clearly makes environmental sense. smart grids, climate friendly power, infrastructures that will have to cope with many future challenges. what are the biggest, is that solar and wind energy are subject to natural fluctuations? we're missing these nadine, we have to be able to manage these energy use it. and that means using these energy, which we generate a different time when they're available in dawson and reducing consumption when then not available in these energy. and it's perfectly fine. this is where digitalization had really come into its own. but how exactly the smart grid allowed has, and the germantown of load on mark is looking at the issue in go get on mean heads

up. the project in the energy network of the future will feature. many new components is becoming an electron mobility will be involved along with heat pumps . so we'll have to integrate imagine new consumers into the greater young battery storage has grown increasingly important to us. please seek to make energy available around the clock. and as the ways we generate power change with more and more sources feeding into the grid, these centralized systems need intelligent control, especially when energy is tight. this problem is, yeah, it's been measured targeting problem. now, when we have the bitterly cold days like nice in the winter in force and oh is that heat pumps will be running an old buildings for all just if the entire street also including electric cars wants to charge a single tenuously that is put then they'll be problems with the grades this course, because the amount of electricity that has to be provided is too high for them to manage the reduction it, it doesn't into the good internet. so in the future,

small grids could make sure that the cause of roll charge sometime during the night . you start with that now when the electricity is available for them from the state and just all the top to achieve goals like this, local network stations and sub stations will have to become smarter. for example, by using digital technology to measure and evaluate voltage data. it does as, as it's the more, the modern kind of local grid station, the busy behind we needed. if we want to see an energy transition and a truly sustainable future energy supplies on the path to a sustainable society. digitalization poses some major challenges, but it can help us reach goals if we use it wisely and don't expect it to solve every problem. today's city escapes have been made possible by an incredibly versatile material concrete. back in the ancient world, the romans used it to create majestic works of architecture. now our reinforce to

structure stretch high into the sky. the concrete is contributing to climate change because it's production release has lots of carbon dioxide kind of a new technique involving ultrasound help reduce its impact expos at this. the borrowed tree in the eastern german city of compass developing a special process to produce concrete in a climate friendly fashion. yeah, but we bombard concrete with ultrasound, ultrasound. sounds like a weird idea. the one that is develop a site will help cut 30 percent of c o 2 emissions in concrete production. here's how it works. concrete is made of sand, gravel and water bound together by cement and cement is very bad for the climate. that's because a chemical reaction occurs during cement production to create lots of carbon

dioxide according to the world wide fund for nature. so manufacturers globally release around $3000000000.00 metric tons of the greenhouse gas every year . that's a whopping 8 percent of all human cost emissions with the stake, a set to rise, but as a file house university environment, christiane of us, the former, don't draw students like how to ramos, develop the process that allows them to reduce how much demand goes into concrete without affecting the building material strengths. the trick is to treat the mixture of cement and malta with ultrasound. sheesh the . this is and this is a high performance ultrasound machine,

similar to the device. some people use at home to clean their glasses and just in a 1000 times more powerful. so we generate the alter sounds here and via various stages. it's channel directly into our cement water mixture and get the filter sound waves, creating microscopic bubbles of water vapor in the mix. when they 1st and a series of miniature explosions, it generates extreme temperatures and precious. on these wounds, literally is high pressures and temperatures end up accelerating the crystal forming reaction into samantha sugars. that's really the more crystals that form the better the cement is. finding. the ultrasound effect is visible under an electron microscope. the ultra sound sample to the less contains a wealth of small crystals on the conventional sample on the right. only a few launch crystal cell phones. the materials researches use the resulting cement

horton mixture to produce the concrete. that's what it was to be mixed together. well, it ends up with the consistency similar to normal concrete the process is long since move from theory into practice. it's inventors found at a stops up and have a quick sign to raise to produce pre cast concrete elements using that method. and encompass the 1st building to incorporate ultrasound, concrete is already being built. the construction of this high speed train maintenance, whole requires 30 percent less than meant to demonstrate the quality of the concrete. what's the sense of a strength test assemblies pulled into a standard q mode to drive a 24 hours a cube of the same dimensions made of conventional concrete is also for

the next day, the sample. it's clumped into the testing machine, which applies increasing pressure until the cube, the crux. first step, the conventional concrete a 1095 killer newtons. that corresponds to a load of a $100.00 tons. plus the in columbus in the concrete cube made with ultrasound technology. i'm 30 percent less cement the chapters of a $1072.00 k. a newton's of thoughts taking the standard deviations into account. that's practically the same menu. only

a 2 percent measured difference in strengths of good results for the developers. and they're already thinking about how to improve the method is enough enough. we might be able to get that out there and making some and saving and 50 percent. and since this put sense of right now, we're happy with that he's a 40 percent. the sports and f bomb is from some of the innovation from caught. bush could benefit not only the climate but the construction industry as a whole. that's because the new ultra sound method also saves more in so many bills then it costs to implement by the way, we're launching a new tick tock channel that i have or take that the we on to your questions and clips that are fun, accurate into the points, but also based on the latest reset,

want to discover even more from the world of science than follow us that dw science that's all for this week on tamara today to science show on dw, thanks for joining us and see you again next time. bye for now, the

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