HP publishes idea Methane Powered Data Centers from Cow Manure, why do you think I keep going to Missouri?

May 18, 2010 Dave Ohara

NYTimes discusses HP's new paper to be published on how methane gas from cow manure can be used for data center power.

One Moos and One Hums, but They Could Help Power Google

Toby Talbot/Associated Press

Manure from 10,000 cows could provide the power for a small computing center at a bank.

By ASHLEE VANCE

Published: May 18, 2010

Graphic

Design for Farm Waste Data Center Ecosystem

America’s dairy farmers could soon find themselves in the computer business, with the manure from their cows possibly powering the vast data centers of companies like Google andMicrosoft. While not immediately intuitive, the idea plays on two trends: the building of computing centers in more rural locales, and dairy farmers’ efforts to deal with cattle waste by turning it into fuel.

With the right skills, a dairy farmer could rent out land and power to technology companies and recoup an investment in the waste-to-fuel systems within two years, Hewlett-Packard engineers say in a research paper to be made public on Wednesday.

This will help to get more people thinking about renewable energy sources from agriculture. USDA is another source gov't agency to work with on these ideas.

We've been discussing these ideas for the Ewing Industrial Data Center site in Columbia, MO along these same lines. University of Missouri our education partner knows a lot about agriculture.

Our Vision

We will be recognized as a customer and employee-caring College that discovers and enlightens through excellence in teaching, research, extension and outreach in agriculture and natural resources programs that are socially sensitive, environmentally responsible, economically viable and efficiently productive.

SJ Mercury News discusses the ideas as well.

Mueller said he's never seen a biogas-powered computer facility. But he added, "there are a lot of potential synergies. You just have to be willing to locate the data center where the fuel is. I don't think you want to ship the manure to Silicon Valley."

With today's high-speed networks, Patel says, it's possible to build computer centers near farms in rural areas. He also sees big potential for using biogas power in developing nations, where electricity is expensive and the existing grid can't support much tech infrastructure.

"This could be an opportunity for emerging economies," he said, "where the need for IT services will be greater and greater."

Also, think of Fuel Cells for using the methane gas.

With Cheap Plentiful Natural Gas, Should Data Centers be sited near Natural Gas supply for lower cost and carbon footprint?

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

WSJ has an article on Shale Gas.

Shale Gas Will Rock the World

Huge discoveries of natural gas promise to shake up the energy markets and geopolitics. And that's just for starters.

By AMY MYERS JAFFE

There's an energy revolution brewing right under our feet.

Over the past decade, a wave of drilling around the world has uncovered giant supplies of natural gas in shale rock. By some estimates, there's 1,000 trillion cubic feet recoverable in North America alone—enough to supply the nation's natural-gas needs for the next 45 years. Europe may have nearly 200 trillion cubic feet of its own.

The author is convinced this will change the energy industry which data centers are a part of.

I have been studying the energy markets for 30 years, and I am convinced that shale gas will revolutionize the industry—and change the world—in the coming decades. It will prevent the rise of any new cartels. It will alter geopolitics. And it will slow the transition to renewable energy.

The author touches on thoughts on renewable energy.

Then, I think we still need to invest in renewables—but smartly. States with renewable-energy potential, such as windy Texas or sunny California, should keep their mandates that a fixed percentage of electricity must be generated by alternative sources. That will give companies incentives and opportunities to bring renewables to market and lower costs over time through experience and innovation. Yes, renewables may seem relatively more expensive in those states as shale gas hits the market. And, yes, that may mean getting more help from government subsidies. But I don't think the cost would be prohibitive, and the long-term benefits are worth it.

Still, I don't believe we should set national mandates—which would get prohibitively expensive in states without abundant renewable resources. Instead of pouring money into subsidies to make such a plan work, the federal government should invest in R&D to make renewables competitive down the road without big subsidies.

Is natural gas supply a new criteria for data center sites running cogeneration plants or fuel cells?

Can Bloom's Energy Server be used in Data Centers?

May 6, 2010 Dave Ohara

Today is a beautiful morning, getting up early for an East Coast phone call. I got the following view.

With a view of Mt Rainer on a clear cold morning in Redmond.

Mt Rainier is here in above picture.

Thinking about a Low Carbon Data Center, fuel cells as a potential source. It's been a while since Bloom Energy made its debut at eBay's campus showing fuel cells used in the office environment.

"eBay believes in the power of our business model to make a real difference in the world, and that includes how we embrace innovation to reduce our carbon footprint. When Bloom came to us, it was an easy decision to become an early-adopter of their cutting-edge new technology. As a result, we're meeting financial and environmental goals with the project while fueling a more energy efficient global marketplace. That's good for us, our customers and the planet."
– John Donahoe, CEO

www.ebay.com

Bloom Installation

500kW
June 2009
San Jose, CA

Objective

eBay Inc sought a cost effective, 24/7 solution that delivered 100% renewable energy, allowing them to meet both financial and environmental goals.

When I went up to Bloom Energy's site I found the mention of data centers.

DC Power: Bloom systems natively produce DC power, which provides an elegant solution to efficiently power DC data centers and/or be the plug-and-play provider for DC charging stations for electric vehicles.

Also, Bloom Energy Server can be used with intermittent renewable energy to generate hydrogen to later be used in the fuel cells.

Hydrogen Production: Bloom's technology, with its NASA roots, can be used to generate electricity and hydrogen. Coupled with intermittent renewable resources like solar or wind, Bloom’s future systems will produce and store hydrogen to enable a 24 hour renewable solution and provide a distributed hydrogen fueling infrastructure for hydrogen powered vehicles.

Fuel cells aren't up to the high availability for data center power generation which can be addressed with reverse backup. This could make sense for areas with power prices above $0.10 kw/hr as cost reduction.

Reverse Backup: Businesses often purchase generators and other expensive backup applications that sit idle 99% of the time, while they purchase their electricity from the grid as their primary source. The Bloom solution allows customers to flip that paradigm, by using the Energy Server as their primary power, and only purchasing electricity from the grid to supplement the output when necessary. Increased asset utilization leads to dramatically improved ROI for Bloom Energy's customers.

One fact I hadn't seen is the ease of carbon sequestration.

Carbon Sequestration: The electrochemical reaction occurring within Bloom Energy systems generates electricity, heat, some H₂O, and pure CO₂. Traditionally, the most costly aspect of carbon sequestration is separating the CO₂ from the other effluents. The pure CO₂ emission allows for easy and cost-effective carbon sequestration from the Bloom systems.

How long will it be before a data center is powered by fuel cells? A friend offered to make some introductions at Bloom Energy, I think it is time to take him up on his offer and discuss some projects I know of that could use a fuel cell solution.

GreenPeace targets Cloud Data Centers environmental impact and use of coal power

March 30, 2010 Dave Ohara

I blogged back in July 2009 asking what would be Greenpeace's target for environmental impact of data centers, speculating Apple, Google, Microsoft as a possible target. Well Greenpeace uses the Apple brand recognition and the iPad announcement to create awareness.

The announcement of Apple’s iPad has been much
anticipated by a world with an ever-increasing appetite for
mobile computing devices as a way to connect, interact,
learn and work. As rumours circulated – first about its
existence and then about its capabilities - the iPad
received more media attention than any other gadget in
recent memory. Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs
finally showcased his company’s latest creation before a
rapt audience in San Francisco. From their smart phones
and netbooks, the crowd feverishly blogged and tweeted
real time updates out to a curious world.

Whether you actually want an iPad or not, there is no
doubt that it is a harbinger of things to come. The iPad
relies upon cloud-based computing to stream video,
download music and books, and fetch email. Already,
millions access the ‘cloud’ to make use of online social
networks, watch streaming video, check email and create
documents, and store thousands of digital photos online
on popular web-hosted sites like Flickr and Picasa.

The term cloud, or cloud computing, used as a metaphor
for the internet, is based on an infrastructure and business
model whereby - rather than being stored on your own
device - data, entertainment, news and other products
and services are delivered to your device, in real time,
from the internet. The creation of the cloud has been a
boon both to the companies hosting it and to consumers
who now need nothing but a personal computer and
internet access to fulfill most of their computing needs.

Greenpeace has been making noise about Facebook's data center, and now has started the public awareness in this pdf.

I know of some companies that have a sigh of relief they are not on the Greenpeace list.

Some of you have noticed I made a change last week to the blog title and now have Green (low carbon) data center.

Green is such an overloaded term it made sense to clarify a focus on discussing low carbon as a goal of a green data center. Note the following in the Greenpeace pdf.

More cloud-computing companies are pursuing design and siting
strategies that can reduce the energy consumption of their data
centres, primarily as a cost containment measure. For most
companies, the environmental benefits of green data design are
generally of secondary concern.

Facebook’s decision to build its own highly-efficient data centre in
Oregon that will be substantially powered by coal-fired electricity clearly
underscores the relative priority for many cloud companies. Increasing
Key trends that will impact the environmental footprint of the cloud
the energy efficiency of its servers and reducing the energy footprint
of the infrastructure of data centres are clearly to be commended, but
efficiency by itself is not green if you are simply working to maximise
output from the cheapest and dirtiest energy source available. The US
EPA will soon be expanding its EnergyStar rating system to apply to
data centres, but similarly does not factor in the fuel source being used
to power the data centre in its rating criteria. Unfortunately, as our
collective demand for computing resources increases, even the most
efficiently built data centres with the highest utilisation rates serve only
to mitigate, rather than eliminate, harmful emissions.

Some people thought the hype about Facebook's coal power was a fad. No it is a trend and the start of evaluating the carbon impact of data centers.

Here is a sampling of other media coverage.

Coal Fuels Much Of Internet "Cloud", Says Greenpeace

New York Times - Peter Henderson - ‎5 hours ago‎

By REUTERS SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The 'cloud' of data which is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all too real cloud of pollution as ...

Greenpeace issues warning about data centre power

BBC News - ‎7 hours ago‎

Greenpeace is calling on technology giants like Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to power their data centres with renewable energy sources. ...

Data clouds called out for dirty energy

Marketplace (blog) - ‎5 hours ago‎

Environmental activities are concerned about server farms' use of dirty energy to keep sites like Google and Facebook running. ...

Greenpeace: Cloud Contributes to Climate Change

Data Center Knowledge - Rich Miller - ‎5 hours ago‎

The environmental group Greenpeace says data center builders must become part of the solution to the climate change challenge, rather than part of the ...

Cloud computing 'fuels climate change'

PCR-online.biz - Nicky Trup - ‎8 hours ago‎

The growth of cloud computing could cause a huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions, Greenpeace has warned. ...

2020: Cloud Computing GHG Emissions To Triple

Basil & Spice - ‎9 hours ago‎

San Francisco, United States — As IT industry analysts label 2010 the “Year of the Cloud”, a new report by Greenpeace shows how the launch of quintessential ...

Greenpeace criticises coal-fuelled internet cloud

TechRadar UK - Adam Hartley - ‎10 hours ago‎

Eco-campaigners at Greenpeace have criticised the idea of an internet 'cloud' - with data centres built by the likes of Facebook, Apple, ...

The iPad, internet, and climate change links in the spotlight

Greenpeace USA - ‎13 hours ago‎

International — On the eve of the launch of the iPad, our latest report warns that the growth of internet computing could come with a huge jump in ...

Bill Gates has the data for connection between energy and climate, sees opportunities for Gates Foundation and his own money - Terrapower

March 26, 2010 Dave Ohara

Bill Gates recently presented at the TED conference.

His video is below and it is 30 minutes long so I know most of you will not watch the whole thing.

There are a few things I learned from his talk that most will miss. I've been in a variety of BillG meetings while at Microsoft and have watched from the inside and outside how Bill operates.

One funny story I used to tell ( the story is over 10 years old) is a BillG keynote at Seybold Seminars. This was back in late 1996-1998 when Bill wanted Windows to win the battle for desktop publishing. He wanted the data on what Microsoft needed to do to win vs Apple. Seybold Seminars no longer exist, but here is bit of background.

Jonathan Seybold sold the company, and various successors ran the conference into the ditch, with the seminar, once the biannual gathering of the print tribes, disappeared a year ago. Jonathan was the oracle of desktop publishing, whose late-80s mantra ("standard platforms, shrink-wrapped software") set the direction for desktop publishing, and, later, the open source movement for all content production.

I had researched the topic before the event and collected detailed notes on Apple and Adobe's presentations to prepare Bill for his keynote. I also prepared discussion material for Jonathan Seybold visited Microsoft for a Bill Gates meeting and sat in the meeting. Bill is a data driven guy and the night before his keynote the rehearsals was a data driven discussion on what to discuss. There were at least eight Microsoft guys surrounding Bill as he practiced his presentation and asked for clarification or more data.

Where was I? 200 ft away in the audience sitting with the Seybold Seminar event staff, five women I was joking with watching the Microsoft guys jockey to get a word in. I figured out a long time ago, there was not a huge upside to getting in front of Bill. It's not like he says "great job Dave, here are more options." But, he can say "that's f*** stupid." and you now need to fight your point to prove Bill is wrong or admit Bill was right and I am stupid. How much fun is that? Vs. sitting with five women for 1 1/2 hrs having pleasant conversations. Also, one of the five is now my wife.

I tell this story, because I look at Bill's speech from a different view. So, back to what I saw in Bill's speech.

Bill has the data that shows the same people he is trying to help with health initiatives at the Gates Foundation are impacted to a greater degree by climate change and availability of energy. (seemed kind of obvious to me) If there is a drought caused by global warming, then crops and water supplies are effected for the population. This is explained in the first minute above video.
The cost of energy has the most impact on the poor. Here is a graph of the price of energy.
He has a simple formula. The sum of CO2 increases temperature has a negative effect
Bill asks his scientist. Can't we just reduce carbon to solve the problem. His scientist say until CO2 from energy generation hits zero the temperature will continue to rise.
Bill next goes into what can be done to get to zero. Asking the question can any of these go to zero. Walks through each the conclusion is C02 per unit energy
What Bill says is we need Energy Miracles that are cheap and no CO2.
Bill identifies the areas he think miracles can be done.
Bill makes this excellent point on energy storage. All the batteries on the earth only store 10 minutes of energy.
Then he gets to his answer for a miracle. Terrapower a travelling wave nuclear reactor.
And last, Bill appeals that there are many things that need to be done to reach the goal of 1/2 cost power with no carbon.

One other big point that was made after Bill was presenting when discussing Terrapower.

Intellectual Ventures^® investments in energy inventions have evolved to become TerraPower, an expert team that is investigating innovative ways to address energy needs. TerraPower’s most advanced work centers on radically improving ways to make electricity using nuclear reactors.

At minute 21:10 in the video, the question is asked where Terrapower and Bill's team is discussing who to work with. The answer is China, Russia, and India. Conversations with US Secretary of Energy are mentioned as well, but I can imagine the regulatory and political activists issues in the US have Terrapower seriously looking at countries outside the US to develop the technology.

On my next trip to Missouri I hope to get a tour of their nuclear reactor, and maybe I can ask them if they have had any discussions with Terrapower.

Here is a presentation by Terrapower's John Gilleland.

“The TerraPower Initiative”

presenter:

John Gilleland

Organization:

TerraPower LLC

video:

Click here to watch a recording of the talk

TerraPower, LLC is a privately funded initiative focused on the development of a new reactor and simplified nuclear infrastructure. Objectives include (1) reduction, and eventual elimination, of the need for enrichment facilities; (2) elimination of any future need for chemical separations-based reprocessing facilities; (3) utilization of natural or depleted uranium as fuel; and (4) achievement of a COE competitive with clean coal plants. Participants include 65 individuals from UC Berkeley, MIT, UNLV, ANL, Burns & Row, CBCG, and Intellectual Ventures.
The reactor is based on the travelling wave concept. The speaker will review the concept and discuss the development challenges.

Thanks to some friends at Intellectual Ventures, I have contacts at Terrapower, but Terrapower Nuclear power generation is decades off, and I can take my time until I have more data. :-)