Aviation industry emits 4 times as much CO2 as data centres

An interesting fact came to light during news coverage of the ban on flights, resulting from volcanic ash produced by Mount Eyjafjallajökull. The savings in CO2 emissions due to planes not flying were quoted as being – 344,109 tons per day, i.e equivalent to 125.6 million tons per year. This is in comparison to Europe’s combined data centre energy usage, estimated at 30 million tons of CO2 per year. Puts things into perspective.