Washington State proposes legislation to restart data center construction, 15 month sales tax exemption

January 29, 2010 Dave Ohara

In Olympia, Washington there are two bills introduced with bipartisan support to allow a 15 month sales tax exemption on the purchase and installation of computers for new data centers.

Legislation to boost rural counties

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 5:23PM | WNJ-Editor

Today is a good day. The bills that we support -- SB 6789 and HB 3147 -- were introduced in Olympia with wide bipartisan support. The 13 sponsors of the bills are from all over the state, from Seattle and Spokane to Walla Walla and Wenatchee. And the state Department of Revenue requested the bills.

The bills allow a 15-month sales-tax exemption on the purchase and installation of computers and energy for new data centers in rural counties. As the bills state, they provide a short-term economic stimulus that will sustain long-term jobs. In other words, the exemption will be temporary, but the jobs and tax revenue from the centers will boost rural counties for years and years to come.

DataCenterKnowledge and I blogged on this issue back in Mar 2008.

Mar 19, 2008

Washington State Gov't uses Interpretation of Manufacturing Tax Law to Tax Data Centers

DataCenterKnowledge reports on the action by the Washington State Legislation to tax data center construction, removing a tax incentive all other gov'ts offer.

Legislation in Washington state that would have restored a tax break for data centers won't be passed in 2008, leaving Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) to mull the future of their plans to continue building in the state. Last month Microsoft and Yahoo halted construction on their multi-facility data center campuses in Quincy, Washington while state legislators debated the tax bill.

The tax package was drafted after the state ruled that data centers were no longer covered by a state sales tax break for manufacturing enterprises, and thus must pay a 7.9 percent tax on data center construction and equipment. Gov. Chris Gregoire requested an exemption in Senate Bill 6666, which would restore the exemption for data centers. The bill was caught up in tax politics, with media terming it a $1 billion tax break for high-tech giants.

There were local officials who thought the low energy prices would keep data center momentum, but as the press release, says no data center permits have issued in the state since 2007.

But no data centers have been built in Quincy or anywhere in Washington since the decision in 2007 that made the tax climate inhospitable. Can you imagine how the tech companies -- and jobs and tax revenue -- will return to rural counties if SB 6789 and HB 3147 pass?

The unemployment rate in rural Washington has people’s attention as Facebook went to Prineville, OR. Note Oregon doesn’t have sales tax.

Grant County in central Washington, for instance, has a whopping 12.5 percent unemployment rate, one of the worst in the state. Its largest city, Moses Lake, has 15,000 people. But just a couple years ago, the city of Quincy nearby, with just 5,000 people, saw the largest tech companies in the world, such as Microsoft and Google, come to town and build massive data centers.

We’ll see if data center construction comes to the State of Washington soon.

In the short term, maybe Microsoft will bring back some of its servers from Texas.

Aug 05, 2009

Washington State Sales Tax Drives Microsoft Windows Azure Servers to Texas

Mary-Jo Foley at ZDNnet picked up news on Microsoft’s decision to remove USA- Northwest from a deployment choice for Windows Azure.

Tax concerns to push Microsoft Azure cloud hosting out of Washington state

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:55 am

Microsoft is making preparations to move applications that developers are hosting on its Azure cloud infrastructure out of its Washington state datacenter, due to a change in the tax laws there.

Microsoft warned customers testing their apps on the Azure test release about the planned change earlier this week. Microsoft is readying a migration tool to help testers with the move, company officials said.

Cloud-computing and .Net expert Roger Jennings put together all the various reports and clues into a detailed August 5 post on his OakLeaf Systems blog.

Obama says we need new generation safe, clean nuclear power plants

January 27, 2010 Dave Ohara

cnet news has a post on President Obama’s speech. An excerpt they have from the speech on energy is.

Here are some excerpts from the president's speech:

We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities, and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs...(Last year's investment) could lead to the world's cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year's investment in clean energy--in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels...
But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Going to white house gov web site is the same with inserts for (applause).

Next, we need to encourage American innovation. Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history -– (applause) -- an investment that could lead to the world's cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year's investments in clean energy -– in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. (Applause.) It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. (Applause.) It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. (Applause.) And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. (Applause.)

On my next trip to Mizzou, I want to see if I can visit the faculty at University of MIssouri Research Reactor Center that I blogged about in Oct 2009.

Nuclear Reactor Research at University of Missouri

I was just in Columbia, Missouri, and the folks I was with took me on campus and we drove by the University of Missouri Nuclear Reactor, a 10 mW facility.

Endowing The Future

The internationally recognized University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR), a
10-megawatt facility, is the most powerful among the dozens of research reactors located on our nation’s university campuses.

Even worldwide, few facilities can compare.

Those at MURR treat it like the unique national resource that it is, employing the facility as a research source – providing products and services that will save or extend people’s lives.

The superior level of the science at MURR helps put the products and services it offers a step ahead, further fueling the depth of its research.

10 Energy Fact tips from DoD’s blog on The Road to a Greener Navy

January 25, 2010 Dave Ohara

US Dept of Defense has a blog called DoDLive. On the site is a Energy Awareness section.

Category Archives: Energy Awareness

The Road to a Greener Navy: 10 Facts on the Navy’s Quest for Alternative FuelsOctober 16, 2009

Posted in DoD News, Energy Awareness.

No comments

Armed with Science: Energy Research for Force MobilityOctober 13, 2009

Posted in Armed with Science, Energy Awareness.

No comments

Armed with Science: Algae Jet Fuel?October 8, 2009

Posted in Armed with Science, Energy Awareness.

2 comments

Air Force Achieving Green GoalsOctober 7, 2009

Posted in Energy Awareness.

2 comments

Armed with Science: The Nellis Air Force Base Solar ArrayOctober 6, 2009

Posted in Armed with Science, Energy Awareness.

No comments

President Obama Declares October National Energy Awareness MonthOctober 6, 2009

Posted in Energy Awareness.

One of the posts on a Greener Navy and its quest to us alternative fuels.

The Road to a Greener Navy: 10 Facts on the Navy’s Quest for Alternative Fuels

1.    The Department of Navy consumes 1.3 billion gallons of fuel per year and is the second largest consumer of fuel in the Department of the Defense (US Air Force is 1st, Army is 3rd).

2.    Every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil increases Navy fuel costs by almost $300 million.

3.    The Navy has set aggressive goals to reduce its reliance on oil, including a 10% annual increase in alternative fuels use by base support vehicles and equipment.

4.    Over 3,000 Electric and Natural Gas vehicles are currently in use on Navy bases. Electric and Natural Gas vehicles might be the most efficient land-based alternative energy solution since they require no conversion from the form in which they are produced or mined and are naturally transportable.

5.    Alternatives to petroleum-based fuel are endless. Pond scum (algae), non-food crops, biomass, wastes and CO2 are among the many energy sources currently under study.

6.    Algae fields can produce 6,000 gallons of oil per acre. A land area of 500 square miles (21.5 x 21.5 miles or 2 times the size of Washington, D.C.) could yield enough oil to meet all of the Navy’s annual fuel needs. In comparison, US oilfields currently occupy 40,000 square miles.

7.    Biofuels derived from algae and the oilseeds of the Camelina sativa plant will be used in the Navy’s “Green” Hornet and “Green” Ship initiatives.

8.    More than 200,000 gallons of algae- and camelina-based fuel will be delivered to the Navy for test and evaluation. These sources will be the first liquid alternatives to petroleum to be certified for future use.

9.    The first Navy aircraft engine to run on bio-fuel was successfully tested this month (October 2009) at the Naval Air Warfare Center Patuxent River, Md.

10.    First flight of the Navy’s F/A-18 “Green” Hornet will take flight in the spring of 2010. The camelina-based biofuel will be blended in a 50-50 mix with standard, petroleum-based JP-5 jet fuel.

Courtesy of Amy Behrman, NAVAIR Corporate Communication

Cloud Computing, Open Source, Containers, & Federal gov’t – new apps.gov model

January 21, 2010 Dave Ohara

What happens when you combine cloud computing, open source, containers and a federal agency who wants to change how data center services are provided? You get a solution like NASA’s Nebula Cloud Computing Platform.

The container is here from DataCenterKnowledge.

NASA’s Nebula: The Cloud in a Container
December 2nd, 2009 : Rich Miller

The Verari data center container housing the NASA Nebula cloud computing application arrives at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

What do you get when you combine cloud computing and data center containers? You get NASA’s Nebula, the space agency’s new data powerhouse, which provides on-demand computing power for NASA researchers. Nebula was recently cited by federal CIO Vivek Kundra as an example of the government’s ability to “leverage the most innovative technologies.”

The Cloud Computing is built on open source SW for eucalyptus

The media event had Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO. In the speech below Vivek 2000 – 2006 points out the federal data centers have doubled their energy use. He is actually anti-data center growth for the traditional model. There are 8 GSA data centers, and 23 homeland security data centers. All built on old models with 100s of millions dollars spent to build data centers the size of city block. There needs to be a new way where there are lower costs and a a greener impact.

Apps.gov is the highlighted site demo’d in the above presentation.

Have crimes been committed against Google in China? Forcing Google to improve its self-defense and be willing to fight

January 13, 2010 Dave Ohara

The official Google blog has a post titled “A new approach to China.” And, after reading you could say Google has been a victim of a crime trying to steal intellectual property. But what does Google do?

A new approach to China

1/12/2010 03:00:00 PM

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

Google has taken action by improving its self – defense skills.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers.

And, they have taken the action of drawing international attention to the crime.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech.

Which is common with environmental groups who draw public attention.

Google’s blog has 619k subscribers.

I would bet Google has chosen this issue as a battle to prove its motto “do no evil.” And, Google probably knows it couldn’t fairly compete against Baidu.