Green (low carbon) Data Center Blog

Power IT Down Day - Aug, 27, 2010

ZDNET has an article on Power IT Down Day.

Can you power down for a day? Intel, HP and Citrix make the case

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan | August 24, 2010, 2:00am PDT

Summary

Power IT Down Day challenges the industry to shut off its IT equipment after work on August 27. If we can do it for one night, we can do it for two. Or 10. Or 365. Right?

Other than restarting my MacBook now and then for software updates, I don’t think I’ve turned it off since 2008.

But while I may be on the green police’s most wanted list, it’s never too late to start good habits. (I’ll be starting mine this week.)

Friday, Aug. 27 is the third annual Power IT Down Day. Last year 5,600 people pledged to turn off their computers, printers and monitors overnight, which saved more than 73,000 kilowatt-hours, which translated into $45,000, which was in turn donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Considering how many of us can survive the night without our hardware, 5,600 seems like a pretty small number. Can’t we do better this year? (To make your own power-down pledge, click here.)

The count of volunteers is at 4850.

Here is one little fact  I found.

It’s something everyone can do. “Standby” does not mean off. Lots of people in America seem to think when you put something on standby, it’s all good because it’s not consuming anything. But it’s still consuming 10 percent of the energy. That’s why the European community is outlawing the standby function.

eBay announces Green Data Center part of 15% GHG Reduction

Environmental Leader has a post on eBay committing to a 15% GHG reduction.

eBay to Emit 15% Fewer GHGs by 2012

E-commerce powerhouse eBay plans to reduce its 2012 greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent, when compared to its 2008 emissions. This news comes at the same time as eBay has donated some old servers to the University of Notre Dame, where the servers will assist in AIDS and cancer research.

Heat generated by the Notre Dame servers will be used to warm a greenhouse that is adjacent to where the servers are housed, according to a press release.

eBay will do most of its work in reducing emissions by improved data management and infrastructure. Next year, the company will begin using a “green” data center that will handle more than a third of its IT infrastructure. The site, in South Jordan, Utah, is being built to LEED Gold status.

The eBay press release is here, and extracted the data center parts.

Energy Efficient Operations and Data Management

As an ecommerce company, eBay has a relatively small carbon footprint with a majority of the company's environmental impact coming from the energy consumed by its data centers. The company's approach to data management and infrastructure will be a key efficiency driver. In 2010, eBay will unveil a new state-of-the-art green data center that will house more than a third of its global data infrastructure. The site, which is being built to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standards in South Jordan, Utah, will deliver state-of-the-art efficiencies in cooling and power management, as well as in IT infrastructure and software.

Hardware efficiency is mentioned.

eBay also operates on a two-year tech refresh system that allows the company to process more transactions per watt. While this system drives energy efficiency in its operations, it comes with environmental collateral damage in the form of e-waste.  To address this, eBay has undertaken new initiatives in the past year to actively repurpose and extend the useful life of hardware.

and eWaste is addressed

An example of the company's commitment to reuse can be found in its recent donation of old servers to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. The server donation initiative not only puts old eBay servers to work in Notre Dame's research labs to power AIDS and cancer research, but leverages the heat generated from those servers to warm a greenhouse that sits adjacent to the laboratory.

Renewable energy is part of the reduction with fuel cells.

Investments in Renewable Energy
eBay continues to support the use of renewable energy to green its operations. The company opened a 197,000 square foot office building in San Jose last year, which features a 650 kW solar installation and has also been LEED Gold certified - with dimming systems and the use of recycled materials throughout.  Following that, eBay is installing a new 100kW solar installation at the company's offices in Denver, Colorado. A fuel cell strategy is also under way - to be announced in early 2010.

Frontline PBS Special: Digital Dumping Ground – eWaste Documented

PBS has a special that just aired on June 23, 2009 on Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.

The video is here.

On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah.

Correspondent Peter Klein and a group of graduate journalism students from the University of British Columbia have come here as part of a global investigation -- to track a shadowy industry that's causing big problems here and around the world.

Their guide is a 13-year-old boy named Alex. He shows them his home, a small room in a mass of shanty dwellings, and offers to take them across a dead river to a notorious area called Agbogbloshie.

Agbogbloshie has become one of the world's digital dumping grounds, where the West's electronic waste, or e-waste, piles up -- hundreds of millions of tons of it each year.

The team meets with Mike Anane, a local journalist who has been writing about the boys at this e-waste dump.

“Life is really difficult; they eat here, surrounded by e-waste,” Anane tells them. “They basically are here to earn a living. But you can imagine the health implications.”

Some of the boys burn old foam on top of computers to melt away the plastic, leaving behind scraps of copper and iron they can collect to sell. The younger boys use magnets from old speakers to gather up the smaller pieces left behind at the burn site.

There is an interactive map.

A slide show.

Close up an Old Google Server, and eWaste

Here are a few more pictures of the Google Server which is ready for retirement.

 

 

 

In a presentation Google presented their eWaste like the above server.

Note Google’s electronic waste disposal graph vs. the industry average of 18%.

eBay is Carbon Neutral Since 2007, Why? 1,000 Passionate Green Employees

Found this press release on eBay’s Green team.  I’ve always believed Green efforts are more credible when coming from the grassroots of employees who want to make a difference.

The eBay Green Team initiative grew out of a grassroots effort begun in 2007 by a small group of passionate eBay employees who wanted to put their environmental values to work. Today, more than 1,000 eBay employees in 18 countries are Green Team members, supporting environmental causes in their local communities and championing sustainable business practices within eBay. When the company needed more office space, the Green Team led eBay to construct the first building built to LEED Gold Standards in San Jose, CA, featuring the city's largest solar panel installation. eBay has also been a carbon neutral company since 2007 through commitments to energy efficiency, alternative power, green buildings and carbon offsets, thanks to efforts by the eBay Green Team.

The last sentence is little known.  eBay has been carbon neutral since 2007.  Why? What is the business justification? Try stopping 1,000 passionate green employees who want to make a difference and think their company should be carbon neutral.

Curious I went to one of my earliest blog entries on eWaste which was about eBay’s rethink web site.  In that entry the list of companies on eBay’s rethink site were.

Apple, Best Buy,Circuit City, Dell, HP, Motorola, Nokia, Toshiba, UPS, USPS, Verizon.

Now the list has grown.

• Apple
• Basel Action
  Network
• Best Buy
• CollectiveGood Foundation
• CEA-Consumer Electronics Association
• Circuit City
• CTIA-The Wireless Association ™
• Dell
• Earth 911
• EPA
• Gateway
• Goodwill
• Hewlett-Packard
• IBM
• Ingram Micro
• Intel
• International Association of Electronics Recyclers
• March of Dimes
• Motorola
• National Cristina Foundation
• Nokia
• Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
• Toshiba
• USPS
• UPS
• Verizon Wireless
• The Wireless
  Foundation

*One bug, don’t know quite what defines new, but the list had BestBuy, Circuit City, and Toshiba on the web site in 2007, and Mar 2009, the companies are still listed as new.