The WSJ has an article about the reality of costs for going green in the home.

In fact, earning back the green premium can take years, not counting rebates and incentives that may be available from government agencies. Enermodal calculates a payback period of more than 10 years for the most extreme green measures, including super-efficient furnaces and water-thrifty faucets. Systems integrator Solar Depot estimates a solar hot-water system will pay for itself in eight to 10 years, depending on the climate, site and home size; a solar radiant floor-heating system will take five to six years. But considering the average U.S. homeowner lives in a house only seven years before moving, many will need more than the hope of lower utility bills to inspire a green remodeling. (And some green products, such as bamboo floors, don't save any money.)

Data centers going green shouldn't run into the same problem, as a 10 mW data center is the equivalent of 10,000 homes, so energy ROIs are much quicker.

DataCenterKnowledge writes a post on ask.com's public statement on Quincy's Power Advantage.

Greg Fennewald, senior director of data center strategy for Ask.com, discussed the economics of power at last week's meeting of the Grant County Economic Development Council. Fennewald spoke about why his company decided to locate in Moses Lake, Washington, where it opened a new data center in December. The savings on electricity, he said, are "quite significant."

"When our place is full, it's going to need about 4,000 kilowatts pretty much flat 24-7," said Fennewald. "That's going to cost about $70,000 a month. To have the same amount of demand in a higher energy cost place like Manhattan or San Francisco, over $300,000. That's a lot of money, and that's per month, so take that times 12, big bucks. There's some good reasons why you see folks going to Quincy, Wenatchee and other places within a 150-mile radius of here. There's a lot of things this area has to offer."

Which reminded me of a dinner conversation I had months ago with the Peter Horan, the CEO of Interactive Active's Media and Advertising division which includes ask.com. We spent a good 10 minutes talking about power and how it was critical factor in data centers. Peter has always been a technical executive and it was refreshing to hear he gets the issues of building a Green Data Center.

Canadian Technology news discusses a Green IT summit in Calgary.

"We generally change for one of two reasons – inspiration or desperation," business philosopher and best-selling author Jim Rohn once said.

The same principle, it seems, holds true in the realm of green IT.

If positive reasons don't do the trick, then the dire consequences of environmentally unsustainable practices will soon cause North American companies to change their ways.

That's likely to be a key message emerging from the Green IT Summit that flags off in Calgary today – going by the pre-summit interviews that ITBusiness.ca did with some of the participants.

An analyst at The 451 Group makes the point.

“IT has to work quickly to become green or we're a black eye to those that want to be green,” he says. And there's a lot of work to be done.

Wacker has even invented his own law to explain datacenter power inefficiency: “Anything that is free or inexpensive is misused.”   

Servers, he says, have long fit into that category.

In this year's Oscars, there are specifics on what they did this year to be green.

With support from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 100% of the energy used for the telecast, the red-carpet arrivals show and the Governors Ball will be supplied by renewable windpower.

All of the generators used for the production, for press support and the red carpet arrivals area are powered by a fuel mix that includes biodiesel.

Among the vehicles made available by General Motors for use by production staff and presenters are zero-emission hydrogen-powered cars and hybrids.

Nearly all food serviceware for events associated with the Awards Presentation is either reusable or biodegradable/compostable.

The programs, invitations, RSVP cards, envelopes, parking passes and other printed materials include a minimum of 30% postconsumer recycled content.

This is much better than last year's announcement where they told the audience how they should be greener, but gave little specifics on their own Green efforts.

They make no mention of the IT equipment, but they do have executive support for their Green efforts and partnership with the NRDC.

Hollywood – Building upon work initiated a year ago, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today that ecologically intelligent practices have once again been incorporated into the planning and execution of the upcoming 80th Annual Academy Awards presentation on Sunday and related events.

The Academy’s green initiative, which includes several energy-saving strategies, is being carried out in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-partisan environmental and advocacy organization.

“Last year, in planning and producing the Oscar® show, we chose supplies, resources and services designed to reduce Oscar’s ecological footprint,” said Ganis. “This year, with the guidance and support of the NRDC, we’ve been able to do even more.”

I missed this part of the MSNBC article.

A 10 percent chance that Lake Mead could be dry by 2014.

A 50 percent chance that reservoir levels will drop too low to allow hydroelectric power generation by 2017.