Data Centers expected to pollute more than airlines by 2020!

antic

antic

Perch
Hmm, I guess Florida weather will just get better. :)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/data-centers-are-becoming-big-polluters-study-finds/

Interesting to see this, as I spotted an ad for a local (Aussie) hosting service, saying "carbon neutral hosting!" (they buy carbon credits I assume, which is known not to help much at all in real terms).

So what is Jodo doing to help delay Armageddon? Do you guys cycle to work? Turn off the lights before you leave the server room? :)
 
I don't beleive carbon credits is the solution either to climate change. We have a small say in how datacenters choose to power themselves, and how they choose to conserve energy. But I'd strongly support any move by any datacenter, including our provider to be more energy efficient and switch to cleaner sources of power
 
antic said:
As long as it's not solar... or we'll start seeing 49.9% uptime SLA's. :)
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Solar is valuable as a spamaalalalal power, out in Texas I can build a small datacenter with only solar and wind and be reliable as long as there is a backup generator as well for emergency. :)

However most places having solar/wind normally have generator and even a grid feed for backup power
 
Perhaps we'll see "green" data centres moving our way. NZ is already sources 70% of its electricity from renewable resources - mainly hydro, geothermal and increasingly wind power. With the country being nuclear free and likely to remain so, and with a ban on new thermal power stations (coal. gas, oil etc) that percentage can only rise. Mind you, electricity prices seem to be rising faster :p
 
Probably a case of supply & demand. If my memory serves me well, demand is increasing by over 10% per year. Growth has exceeded the power planners expectations and we now find ourselves with only just enough capacity to meet current demands.

Seems to me that since electricity generation and distribution was taken out of public ownership, there has been no strategic planning. Each power company seems focused on maximising profits, and that is easier done by raising the price of an increasingly scarce resource than by investing in costly new generating facilities.

And to be honest "green" generation is more expensive than "dirty" generation due to the higher capital costs involved.

Still, the government is predicting 90% of electricity will be from renewable resources by 2025 and the country to be carbon neutral by 2045. Some how I think they are going to need some pretty enticing carrots (or a mighty big stick) to get the power generators to comply.
 
Here in the US huge money is being put into wind and solar development, what is odd is that my power company here in Florida, FPL is making one(maybe #1) of the world's largest windfarms near my home in TEXAS!

What I find more odd is that they plan on transmitting the power in DC over and not AC.

What I don't understand about the process is that the whole reason AC became standard was because DC doesn't transmit very far without losing its current......
 
Tanmaya has just given me some info that DC actually works really well on super high voltage transmissions, I guess that would be why they are doing 500,000 volts :)
 
Interesting. Here, power generators have no say in how electricity is transmitted. That's handled by lines transmission companies. Companies that transmit electricity are not permitted to generate or sell it.

Looking out the windows on the east of our house I can see 3 wind farms, each with about 50 to 80 turbines and each owned by separate generating companies. At the start of the millennium, there weren't any.
 
nzkiwi said:
Interesting. Here, power generators have no say in how electricity is transmitted. That's handled by lines transmission companies. Companies that transmit electricity are not permitted to generate or sell it.

Looking out the windows on the east of our house I can see 3 wind farms, each with about 50 to 80 turbines and each owned by separate generating companies. At the start of the millennium, there weren't any.
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Here the generating companies own the lines that connect to the central grid that is normally overseen by the state utilities commissions. (or in some regions, multi state groups, like the ones up in the northeast)
 
Well it's good to hear that companies are doing something positive to help ease the impact of climate change.

One of the best ways probably to help is by removing legacy systems or modernizing them. Legacy applications only add to the power consumption because they would necessarily run on hardware which might have been built for specific environmental conditions, and that might be too hungry for electricity. Modern applications, managed on modern hardware can really cut some slack on power usage, and in turn, help lessen cost.

Wind and Solar power totally rocks, and I hope to see them more in my state.

I really do hope a better fuel/energy source is found soon....pollution is getting worse.
 
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