Answers.Body: <p>I am going to preface this by saying <em>I'm somewhat reluctant to &quot;answer&quot; this</em> as there <strong>there is no way this can be definitively answered</strong>. We can however make some reasonable assumptions off some known points and look at the two biggest online providers, Lichess and Chess.com.</p>
  <p>Figures as of 2023:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Lichess has ~5,000,000 games a day</li>
  <li>Chess.com ~10,000,000 games a day</li>
  </ul>
  <p>To provide these services:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Lichess has approximately 35 servers</li>
  <li>Chess.com appears to be  partially cloud based and scales horizontally.
  <ul>
  <li>however we can semi-reasonably just double the known lichess infrastructure. 70.</li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  </ul>
  <p><strong>105 servers</strong></p>
  <p>Servers similar/same to the ones being utilised by lichess and chess.com generally 1900 - 2100 kwH annually ,</p>
  <p>2000 * 105 = <strong>210000kwH/year</strong></p>
  <p>Each kwH generates approximately 300grams of CO2 emissions.</p>
  <p>so 210,000 * 0.300 = <strong>63,000/year &gt;&gt; 63 Tonnes/year</strong> of CO2 emissions.
  This is 0.0042</p>
  <p>This Means
  15,000,000 Games a Day  &gt;&gt; 172kg of CO2 emissions per Day
  <strong>0.0115 Grams of CO2  Per Game.</strong></p>
  <p>What needs to be understood is that there is a 2 way transaction that is occurring. There is a provider , but generally each game requires 2 users.</p>
  <p>We have no way of reasonably calculating the users usage / consumption and kwH , so the best we can reasonably do is use the figures we ball parked from the providers. So for 2 users and a provider</p>
  <p><strong>((3*172) * 365.22 ) =  188469 &gt;&gt; 188.5 Tonnes of CO2</strong></p>
  <p>188.5 Tonnes for 5.5 Billion Games</p>
  <p>Again; this can't be definitively answered. This is only something to get thoughts happening.</p>
  <p>Points of Consideration:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>Carbon emissions are based of US emissions per kwH, countries such as Australia that uses coal as a primary power producer, would be higher.</li>
  <li>As previously states this is factoring in the Users. This is going to be the significant factor and at this point in time I cant see an adequate way to tackle this problem without significant data dumps from providers. Generally speaking however, user will use more kwH/game than the providers generally speaking. So these figures could potentially be interpreted as a &quot;starting&quot; point.</li>
  <li>Only looking at Chess.com and Lichess, which doesnt factor in all the other chess providers, the power consumption etc which occurs in OTB tournaments.
  -This is only looking at the power estimates per game and not other factors such as general power consumption for lighting heating etc.</li>
  <li>Most larger data centres have cost saving mechanisms for things like power. They generally live in big long buildings with a lot of roof area...ripe for solar panels.</li>
  <li>Most Server Hosting companies provide &quot;eco-power&quot; models where you may pay fractionally more for &quot;green power&quot;.</li>
  </ul>
  <p><strong>All units are either universal or metric, eg Tonnes is the metric tonne of 1000kg</strong></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-19T22:52:10.633Z
Answers.Text: Note that those 0.0115 grams are negligible with respect to the CO2 generated by the two players breathing: if the game lasts 10 minutes, that's 14 grams.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Federico Poloni
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-19T23:02:00.270Z
Answers.Text: @FedericoPoloni kind of. You'd be quite surprised at individual breathing rates. 15 to 20 breathes per minute. If i remember correctly  is something like 1 kilo and change per person per day of co2 just breathing at resting metabolic rate. Its been well over a decade though since i've done sport science stuff though.  But your general assumption off negligible s pretty reasonable. Not blame shifting etc, but if online chess is considered a problem for golobal emissions we are royally screwed. So much more contributing that can be easily rectified.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Dheebs
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-20T07:59:09.457Z
Answers.Text: Thanks for the estimation - a more precise answer isn't possible, but then, it isn't needed either. Conclusio: we chessplayers still are green :-)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-20T08:03:55.380Z
Answers.Text: 1. Besides the electric consumption of servers, we should also factor in the carbon footprint of their construction (and their disposal when they become out-of-order) 2. Certainly the highest CO2 contribution of chess are the airplane flights for tournaments, but it is unclear to me whether or not the question is limited to online chess.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-21T08:17:03.140Z
Answers.Text: @Evargalo thankfully that math has been pretty well covered. I think it's something like 200,000km is the break even point.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Dheebs
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-21T08:29:33.310Z
Answers.Text: @Dheebs : I am afraid I don't understand your last comment.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-21T10:10:43.817Z
Answers.Text: @Evargalo https://premium.goauto.com.au/are-evs-greener-than-ice-vehicles/?amp=1 basically says for EVe to have produced less CO2 than a standard IC Engine it would take 110,000km. Or before it's actually starting to contribute to reducing carbon emissions.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Dheebs
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-22T08:26:38.430Z
Answers.Text: @Dheebs The article you linked is comparing the footprint of different terrestrial vehicle with respect to their motorization (in Australia btw, where electricity is very carbon-intensive, where I live in France the break-even-point is generally estimated around 65,000km). This doesn't seem at all to adress my comments about 1. the carbon footprint of websites' servers 2. the impact of air travel vs online chess.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2023-11-19T22:34:49.590Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2023-11-19T22:34:49.590Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Dheebs
Body: <p>Chess must be a very &quot;green&quot; sport, the resource demand is minimal.
  But then, lately online chess is in vogue, and servers eat amps.</p>
  <p>Any estimation how much energy online chess is consuming worldwide?</p>
  <p>Side note: I created a tag &quot;society&quot; for &quot;Chess and Society&quot; issues, for lack of a better idea.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-19T20:20:42.527Z
Comments.Text: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/10jjsyz/til_it_takes_roughly_408k_to_run_lichess_servers/ has a link to a spreadsheet detailing Lichess' running costs. You can probably wave your hands from there. The answer will be "bugger all compared to cryptocurrency mining"
Comments.UserDisplayName: Ian Bush
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-19T21:45:44.550Z
Comments.Text: This is going to be an extremely complicated question based off a lot of assumptions. Looking at some usage statistics , Chess.com might see 10m games a day  and Lichess around 5m a games a day. Not insignificant numbers but definitely not the main contributors. The number of servers can scale horizontally , from what i can see so an accurate count is a little tricky. The real numbers arent in the server usage though. They will be in the individuals and their own personal devices.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Dheebs
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-21T05:44:28.107Z
Comments.Text: This looks like it's about chess within the scope defined in the help center, so I'm voting to reopen (the help center says "Questions that have to do primarily with chess in its standard form are on-topic here", and goes on to list physical items as within scope).
Comments.UserDisplayName: Allure
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-21T13:29:49.117Z
Comments.Text: @Hauke Reddman,  I made a mistake on this one.  [Allure is right](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/43269/ecological-footprint-of-chess#comment71317_43269).   _mea culpa_
Comments.UserDisplayName: SecretAgentMan
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-22T08:25:21.197Z
Comments.Text: Are you specifically interested in the carbon footprint of online chess specifically (as the body of the question seems to specify) or about the global carbon footprint of chess as a sport (as the title and the first sentence seems to infer) ?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-22T09:36:28.040Z
Comments.Text: @Evargalo: Well, only online, I since guess OTB chess can be neglected (the highest factor maybe being GMs jetting around the world, and there are not enough of them to matter). Just for fun, I tried to google whether the FIDE has some explicit ecology/sustainability statement, but I can't find one. (Neither the German DSB, but already 2011 it got a sponsor who is a green energy producer.)
Comments.UserDisplayName: Hauke Reddmann
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2023-11-22T11:33:01.983Z
Comments.Text: @HaukeReddmann : I think your premices about the respective footprints of air travel and data centers are incorrect, but well, it's your question !
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Tags: <online-chess><statistics><mathematics><society>
Title: Ecological footprint of chess
ThreadText: # Ecological footprint of chess
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2023-11-18)
  
  Chess must be a very "green" sport, the resource demand is minimal.
  But then, lately online chess is in vogue, and servers eat amps.
  
  Any estimation how much energy online chess is consuming worldwide?
  
  Side note: I created a tag "society" for "Chess and Society" issues, for lack of a better idea.
  
  **Tags:** online-chess, statistics, mathematics, society
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/10jjsyz/til_it_takes_roughly_408k_to_run_lichess_servers/ has a link to a spreadsheet detailing Lichess' running costs. You can probably wave your hands from there. The answer will be "bugger all compared to cryptocurrency mining"  
  > **username_2**: This is going to be an extremely complicated question based off a lot of assumptions. Looking at some usage statistics , Chess.com might see 10m games a day  and Lichess around 5m a games a day. Not insignificant numbers but definitely not the main contributors. The number of servers can scale horizontally , from what i can see so an accurate count is a little tricky. The real numbers arent in the server usage though. They will be in the individuals and their own personal devices.  
  > **username_3**: This looks like it's about chess within the scope defined in the help center, so I'm voting to reopen (the help center says "Questions that have to do primarily with chess in its standard form are on-topic here", and goes on to list physical items as within scope).  
  > **username_4**: @username_0 Reddman,  I made a mistake on this one.  [username_3 is right](https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/43269/ecological-footprint-of-chess#comment71317_43269).   _mea culpa_  
  > **username_5**: Are you specifically interested in the carbon footprint of online chess specifically (as the body of the question seems to specify) or about the global carbon footprint of chess as a sport (as the title and the first sentence seems to infer) ?  
  > **username_0**: @username_5: Well, only online, I since guess OTB chess can be neglected (the highest factor maybe being GMs jetting around the world, and there are not enough of them to matter). Just for fun, I tried to google whether the FIDE has some explicit ecology/sustainability statement, but I can't find one. (Neither the German DSB, but already 2011 it got a sponsor who is a green energy producer.)  
  > **username_5**: @username_0 : I think your premices about the respective footprints of air travel and data centers are incorrect, but well, it's your question !  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2023-11-19. Score: 5 | Accepted answer
  
  I am going to preface this by saying *I'm somewhat reluctant to "answer" this* as there **there is no way this can be definitively answered**. We can however make some reasonable assumptions off some known points and look at the two biggest online providers, Lichess and Chess.com.
  
  Figures as of 2023:
  
  * Lichess has ~5,000,000 games a day
  * Chess.com ~10,000,000 games a day
  
  To provide these services:
  
  * Lichess has approximately 35 servers
  * Chess.com appears to be partially cloud based and scales horizontally.
    + however we can semi-reasonably just double the known lichess infrastructure. 70.
  
  **105 servers**
  
  Servers similar/same to the ones being utilised by lichess and chess.com generally 1900 - 2100 kwH annually ,
  
  2000 \* 105 = **210000kwH/year**
  
  Each kwH generates approximately 300grams of CO2 emissions.
  
  so 210,000 \* 0.300 = **63,000/year >> 63 Tonnes/year** of CO2 emissions.
  This is 0.0042
  
  This Means
  15,000,000 Games a Day >> 172kg of CO2 emissions per Day
  **0.0115 Grams of CO2 Per Game.**
  
  What needs to be understood is that there is a 2 way transaction that is occurring. There is a provider , but generally each game requires 2 users.
  
  We have no way of reasonably calculating the users usage / consumption and kwH , so the best we can reasonably do is use the figures we ball parked from the providers. So for 2 users and a provider
  
  **((3\*172) \* 365.22 ) = 188469 >> 188.5 Tonnes of CO2**
  
  188.5 Tonnes for 5.5 Billion Games
  
  Again; this can't be definitively answered. This is only something to get thoughts happening.
  
  Points of Consideration:
  
  * Carbon emissions are based of US emissions per kwH, countries such as Australia that uses coal as a primary power producer, would be higher.
  * As previously states this is factoring in the Users. This is going to be the significant factor and at this point in time I cant see an adequate way to tackle this problem without significant data dumps from providers. Generally speaking however, user will use more kwH/game than the providers generally speaking. So these figures could potentially be interpreted as a "starting" point.
  * Only looking at Chess.com and Lichess, which doesnt factor in all the other chess providers, the power consumption etc which occurs in OTB tournaments.
    -This is only looking at the power estimates per game and not other factors such as general power consumption for lighting heating etc.
  * Most larger data centres have cost saving mechanisms for things like power. They generally live in big long buildings with a lot of roof area...ripe for solar panels.
  * Most Server Hosting companies provide "eco-power" models where you may pay fractionally more for "green power".
  
  **All units are either universal or metric, eg Tonnes is the metric tonne of 1000kg**
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_6**: Note that those 0.0115 grams are negligible with respect to the CO2 generated by the two players breathing: if the game lasts 10 minutes, that's 14 grams.  
  > **username_2**: @username_6 kind of. You'd be quite surprised at individual breathing rates. 15 to 20 breathes per minute. If i remember correctly  is something like 1 kilo and change per person per day of co2 just breathing at resting metabolic rate. Its been well over a decade though since i've done sport science stuff though.  But your general assumption off negligible s pretty reasonable. Not blame shifting etc, but if online chess is considered a problem for golobal emissions we are royally screwed. So much more contributing that can be easily rectified.  
  > **username_0**: Thanks for the estimation - a more precise answer isn't possible, but then, it isn't needed either. Conclusio: we chessplayers still are green :-)  
  > **username_5**: 1. Besides the electric consumption of servers, we should also factor in the carbon footprint of their construction (and their disposal when they become out-of-order) 2. Certainly the highest CO2 contribution of chess are the airplane flights for tournaments, but it is unclear to me whether or not the question is limited to online chess.  
  > **username_2**: @username_5 thankfully that math has been pretty well covered. I think it's something like 200,000km is the break even point.  
  > **username_5**: @username_2 : I am afraid I don't understand your last comment.  
  > **username_2**: @username_5 https://premium.goauto.com.au/are-evs-greener-than-ice-vehicles/?amp=1 basically says for EVe to have produced less CO2 than a standard IC Engine it would take 110,000km. Or before it's actually starting to contribute to reducing carbon emissions.  
  > **username_5**: @username_2 The article you linked is comparing the footprint of different terrestrial vehicle with respect to their motorization (in Australia btw, where electricity is very carbon-intensive, where I live in France the break-even-point is generally estimated around 65,000km). This doesn't seem at all to adress my comments about 1. the carbon footprint of websites' servers 2. the impact of air travel vs online chess.  
  
  ---
  
  