Greenpeace launches Unfriend Coal Video at Facebook - the so coal network

September 16, 2010 Dave Ohara

There are some out there surprised by Greenpeace's action at Facebook, but I could see this coming 2 years ago, and even blogged incorrectly that Google, Apple, Microsoft were the potential targets in July 2009 which was logical given their brand and data center build outs.

What is the First Greenpeace Data Center Target? Apple? Google? Microsoft?

Datacenterknowledge blogs on how quickly Apple is building its $1 billion dollar data center.

Apple Moving Quickly on NC Project
July 28th, 2009 : Rich Miller

Facebook's move to Oregon and the choice of coal power set Facebook as the target.

Facebook bets on coal for new Oregon data center

By Matt Stansberry, Executive Editor
29 Jan 2010 | SearchDataCenter.com

On Jan. 21, when Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations atFacebook announced the company would build its first data center, it wasn't a surprise that the Web giant located its facility in Oregon. What is surprising is that it will not avail itself of the region's famous hydroelectric power.

This is turning into a media battle and Greenpeace launches its latest.

Greenpeace Launches Its Latest Anti-Facebook Volley

By Matthew Wheeland at Greener World Media

Thu Sep 16, 2010 1:00am EDT

"The Social Network" it certainly isn't, but Greenpeace today unveiled the latest front in its battle to get Facebook to change its coal-powered-data-center ways.

Timed to the release in two weeks of a feature film about the at-times-seamy beginnings of Facebook, Greenpeace has put together its own satire of the company's history.

The video is here on YouTube with 34,414 views now.

Note the play on words.

and thanks to YouTube's closed caption here is some screen shots with the words.

Here is a list of media coverage so far. Maybe Facebook should have had a green data center strategy beyond being efficient? duh.

You're 'So Coal': Angling to Shame Facebook

New York Times (blog) - Leslie Kaufman - ‎1 hour ago‎

It's not intuitive to have pity for Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old co-founder of Facebook. But lately Mr. Zuckerberg, thought to be the ...

30 Second MBA: Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook "How do you generate innovation?"

Fast Company - ‎12 hours ago‎

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, answers the question: "How do you generate innovation?"

Zuckerburg would be happy to make Facebook non-profit: David Kirkpatrick

Economic Times - ‎14 hours ago‎

You ask David Kirkpatrick, why we should read his book and pat comes the reply: “If you want to understand Facebook and know who Mark Zuckerberg is. ...

Greenpeace Launches Its Latest Anti-Facebook Volley

Reuters - Matthew Wheeland - ‎21 hours ago‎

"The Social Network" it certainly isn't, but Greenpeace today unveiled the latest front in its battle to get ...

The So Coal Network: Confronting Facebook's Coal Problem (Video)

Huffington Post - ‎Sep 16, 2010‎

The story about the founders of Facebook, The Social Network, premieres next week, and Greenpeace has taken the opportunity to create our own short film, ...

Greenpeace slams Facebook's coal-powered data centre

Information Age - ‎3 hours ago‎

Greenpeace has issued a video calling on social networking giant Facebook to stop powering its Oregon data centre with electricity generated by burning coal ...

Cause for a viral video

Ithaca College The Ithacan - Rebecca Webster - ‎12 hours ago‎

It always amazes me what seemingly simple graphics and the sound of a child's voice can do for a cause. At this point, if you are an avid Facebook-er, ...

All 22 related articles »

Blogs

Mark Zuckerberg: Social Games Are Next-Generation, Xbox And Nintendo, Last-Gen

Forbes (blog) - Oliver Chiang - ‎Sep 15, 2010‎

It's no surprise that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg thinks that games, and all online applications, are becoming more social. ...

Greenpeace International Challenges Facebook's Use of Coal-Based Power

Green Jobs Ready (blog) - ‎17 hours ago‎

by Mandy on September 16, 2010 Leading non-profit environmental organization Greenpeace International is challenging Facebook to seek clean energy ...

How Green is Green Enough?

Data Center Journal (blog) - jeffrey clark - ‎20 hours ago‎

The recent (and ongoing) dispute between the social-networking giant Facebook and environmental advocacy group Greenpeace (“Greenpeace Versus Facebook”) ...

Going Green in the data center with Biodiesel introduces risks

August 24, 2010 Dave Ohara

Matt Stansberry with SearchDataCenter reports on problems with Biodiesel use in data centers.

Biodiesel mandates cause backup generator problems

By Matt Stansberry, Executive Editor
20 Aug 2010 | SearchDataCenter.com

Soybean-based fuels are fouling up the best-laid backup plans of some data center pros.

Today, some data center managers wrestle with state government legislation that mandates the use of biodiesel over traditional petro-diesel -- mandates that are designed to wean states off petrol dependence and move toward more environmentally sustainable fuels.

But these alternatives pose risks. Derived from vegetable oils or animal fat instead of petroleum, biofuel blends can increase water and biological contaminants in fuel supplies. If handled improperly, biodiesel fuels can stop a data center's backup systems cold, according to a recent report from the Uptime Institute.

With biodiesel, the water tends to stay in suspension, and it makes the fuel look cloudy.
Lamont Fortune, lead mechanical engineer of data center facilities at UnitedHealth Group

As many of has said government regulation is what will drive green data center action for many and requiring biodiesel, a green fuel compared to petro-based diesel is relatively easy for a government group to mandate.

Minnesota, Washington and Oregon have biodiesel mandates. Minnesota mandates the use of B5 and will switch to B20 by 2015. Oregon and Washington currently mandate the use of B2. Biodiesel legislation is pending in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Louisiana and Massachusetts.

Biodiesel backs up data center systems
Lamont Fortune, the lead mechanical engineer of data center facilities at insurance company UnitedHealth Group in Minnesota, knows firsthand how biodiesel can cause trouble for data center facilities. He was the driving force behind the Uptime Institute's biodiesel technical paper and co-authored it with Uptime VP Rick Schuknecht and other data center operators.

Green Data Center Renewable Network in Canada

August 4, 2010 Dave Ohara

It can be hard green your energy supply to one data center as unless you are Google Energy you don't have the resources and use to investigate new ideas. So, in Canada there are a collection of data centers looking to have a low carbon data center footprint.

ITBusinessEdge writes.

The Green Data Center: Pursuing the Big Picture
Posted by Arthur Cole Aug 3, 2010 4:52:30 PM

The quest for the ever-greener data center has long focused on more energy-efficient hardware and software platforms, both to lower consumption for actual data processing and lessen the resulting heat load.

Most of the these initiatives have one thing in common: They target energy use at individual facilities. This has been a problem for supporters of renewable energy in particular, who have faced resistance from those who say such sources are unreliable.

But what if we approached the problem from a broader perspective, say, by linking data centers together and driving efficiencies at the utility level? Is it possible that we could see not only greater conservation but improved service as well?

The GreenStar Network is the Canadian project.

The goal of the GreenStar Network Project is to initiate a Canadian consortium of industry, universities and government agencies with the common goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from information & communication technology (ICT) services.

The expected result is the creation of tools, protocols, procedures, use cases for a growing network of ICT service providers that offers customers the lowest price and greenest services.

The project is innovative because it focuses on the relationship between networks and green datacenters in order to provide Green ICT services. Canada and Canadians will benefit by a continued growth of ICT with significantly reduced carbon footprint and an international leadership role in Green ICT.

Scientific computing comments.

Solar-Powered Datacenter Launches in Green Internet Network

A rooftop solar-powered datacenter has been connected to Canada’s first “green” powered internet network. On June 29, 2010, Cybera, with national partners CANARIE and the GreenStar Network (GSN) Project, connected the Calgary node, which is managed by Cybera, will draw more than 1,840 watts of power from eight solar panels (230 watts each) installed on roof space donated by Calgary Technologies in the Alastair Ross Technology Centre. Over the next few months, the GSN Project will connect five different nodes across Canada, each powered by renewable energy sources as they store and transfer research data for pilot user groups.

Is is more likely that green data centers can occur on a campus type of network?

I think so, this approach is what we have been discussing with the folks in Missouri and their data center site.

Solar renewable energy generation drives desert areas closer to Peak Water

July 31, 2010 Dave Ohara

WSJ has an opinion article on Peak Water issues caused by solar power mandates. For more in depth of the comparison of the term Peak Water vs. Peak Oil check out this pdf.

Peak Water
Meena Palaniappan and Peter H. Gleick

In the past few years, discussions about the possibility of resource crises around water, energy, and food have introduced new terms and concepts into the public debate. Energy experts predict that the world is approaching, or has even passed, the point of maximum production of oil, or “peak oil.” The implications of reaching this point for energy policy are profound, for a range of economic, political, and environmental reasons. More recently, there has been a growing discussion of whether we are also approaching a comparable point of “peak water,” at which we run up against natural limits to availability or human use of freshwater.

Back to the WSJ Article.

Peak Water

An unintended consequence of solar power mandates.

Harry Reid has decided that Senate Democrats will put off their cap-and-tax energy ambitions for now, focusing on smaller-scale subsidies and mandates. Anyone who thinks this counts as a "compromise" might visit Arizona, where the green campaign for renewable energy is forcing the state to confront the limits of a nonrenewable resource—water.

With more than 10 months of sun a year and vast tracts of desert, Arizona is seemingly ideal for solar power, aside from the fact that solar isn't cost-competitive with conventional fuels. So, in a preview of the "renewable portfolio standard" that Democrats want to impose nationwide, the state mandated that utilities produce 15% of their electricity from green sources by 2025. Scores of solar projects are thus under review by federal and state regulators, with some of the applications fast-tracked so developers can qualify for tax credits in the stimulus.

What is not common public knowledge is the relationship between energy and water in power production. Australia has a study that shows the relationship that I posted on last year. I think the Australians learned this as part of when a desalination plant was built to be powered by a coal power plant. You can guess when you account for the fresh water use by the power plant, the amount of energy required to generate fresh water through desalination, the economics and environmental impact didn't work.

Looking at the big picture of the relationship between water and solar power is in the WSJ article.

One hitch: The hot, arid regions best suited for solar also tend to be short on fresh water, and Arizona is no exception. Utility-scale solar power works by generating steam that spins turbines. Cooling the system at the end of the process consumes almost twice as much water per megawatt hour as coal-fired power plants that use the same cooling technology, according to a 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service. The study, which examined the consequences of a solar expansion in the southwest, adds that it could consume as much as 1% of the state's finite water resources within a few years.

The environmentalists answer is to not use steam, but photovoltaic.

Environmentalists say other solar methods require less water, but these aren't as efficient for generating power and they raise costs even more than the usual solar process. At any rate, Arizona is already an electricity exporter, mostly to California, so it isn't as if energy is in short supply. The state's green regulations are effectively a mandate to export water, which is in short supply.

The greens also claim that advanced photovoltaic solar farms (which convert sunlight directly into electricity with de minimis water) are just around the corner. But photovoltaic technology is no closer to commercial scale than cellulosic ethanol, plug-in vehicles and the other "second generation" science projects that environmentalists claim are just five years off to excuse the shortcomings of technologies as they exist today. They're always just five years off no matter what year it is, in order to justify continued subsidies.

Issues like this are why I say it is difficult to define a green data center. A better method is to take the steps to make things greener.

Green energy has been sold as a great free lunch, promising millions of new jobs and cheap electricity, but somehow it never turns out that way when you look under the hood.

The greenest data center is the one that doesn't exist and has no environmental impact. But, I am not going to take that radical environmentalist view. Cloud computing getting people to be charged for their usage in real-time is a great step to get people to see the costs of their technical and business decisions to run information services.

Google adds 20 year 114 MW Renewable Energy Purchase to its Green Data Center strategy, is electricity hedging a future for data centers?

July 20, 2010 Dave Ohara

Google's Urs Hoelzle posts on Google's Official Blog their Google Energy LLC renewable energy purchase.

Reducing our carbon footprint with the direct purchase of renewable energy

7/20/2010 07:12:00 AM

When we decided in 2007 to voluntarily become carbon neutral, our intent was to take responsibility for our carbon emissions and promote sustainable environmental solutions. We approach this goal in three ways. First, we minimize our energy consumption; in fact, we’ve built some of the world’s most energy efficient data centers. Second, we seek to power our facilities with renewable energy, like we did in Mountain View, CA with one of the largest corporate solar installations. Finally, we purchase carbon offsets for the emissions we cannot directly eliminate.

We just completed a substantial 20-year green Power Purchase Agreement that allows us to take responsibility for our footprint and foster true growth in the renewable energy sector. On July 30 we will begin purchasing the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years. Incorporating such a large amount of wind power into our portfolio is tricky (read more about how the deal is structured), but this power is enough to supply several data centers.

The wind farm, which began operation in December 2009, consists of 100 GE 1.5MW XLE turbines.

Google is not buying this power for its data centers. Google is reselling the power on the spot market.

In this case, we’re buying renewable energy directly from its source – the wind farm. We cannot use this energy directly, so we’re reselling it back to the grid in the regional spot market – but retiring the RECs associated with the power. By obtaining RECs through the purchase of green power, our deal has a greater impact on the renewable industry than simply buying “naked” RECs from third parties; our long-term commitment directly frees up capital for the developer to build more wind projects.

With Google's cash reserves and long term view they have figured a better way to use their money than buying Renewable Energy Credits (REC).

Buying renewable energy directly from the developer impacts the development of renewable energy projects in ways that are more meaningful than the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from third parties. RECs allow energy consumers to identify and track power made from eligible sources of renewable energy. They have value and are typically bought and sold independently of the electricity from which they are generated.

Most data center operators have discounted renewable energy as they look at the local availability. With Google Energy LLC, Google is changing the game in the same way that Southwest Airlines added fuel hedging to its strategy being an airline.

Hedging fuel

Southwest has a longtime program to hedge fuel prices. It has purchased fuel options years in advance to smooth out fluctuations in fuel costs.^{[citation needed]}

In 2000, Southwest said it had "adjusted its hedging strategy" to "utilize financial derivative instruments... when it appears the Company can take advantage of market conditions." Additionally, the company hoped to "take advantage of historically low jet fuel prices."^[25] Southwest’s decision proved to be a prescient and, for a time, an extremely profitable effort.^{[citation needed]}

To lock in the low historical prices Southwest believed were occurring at that time, Southwest used a mixture of swaps and call options to secure fuel in future years while paying prices they believed were low. The company also stated that with this new strategy, it faced substantial risks if the oil prices continued to go down. They did not. Previously, Southwest had been more interested in reducing volatility of oil prices. Now, they hoped to reap large gains from oil price appreciation.^{[citation needed]}

In 2001, Southwest again substantially increased its hedging in response to projections of increased crude oil prices. The use of these hedges helped Southwest maintain its profitability during the oil shocks related to the Iraq War and later Hurricane Katrina.^{[citation needed]}

Google can make a move few can do. The idea of long term renewable energy purchase allows Google to be a player in defining the future energy market.

Would you bet against Google in this area?

We depend upon large quantities of electricity to power Google services and want to make large actions to support renewable energy. As we continue operating with the most energy efficient data centers and working to be carbon neutral, we’re happy to also be directly purchasing energy from renewable resources.
Posted by Urs Hoelzle, Senior Vice President, Operations

Urs Hoelzle is making his mark in the data center industry that hopefully many others will follow.

How many of you think of the value of RECs you own and can resell? Urs knows the future value of Google Energy's REC portfolio. It will be interesting to see Google's next move.