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Found this Australia study on “water requirements of nuclear power stations”
Here is the conclusion.
Per megawatt existing nuclear power stations use and consume more water than power stations using other fuel sources. Depending on the cooling technology utilised, the water requirements for a nuclear power station can vary between 20 to 83 per cent more than for other power stations.
If you are curious on how much water gets used in power generation you can look at this chart.
Thanks to high visibility companies and the media, data centers are now a well known topic. Google and Microsoft competing. Amazon’s silence. Apple’s $1 billion dollar data center have all contributed to data centers now being something interesting to talk about.
Data centers are now hip, cool, and maybe even sexy to some to know some of the secrets of what is being built. You are now part of the club, and the club is an exclusive set of people who make the data center decisions, spending hundreds of millions of dollars and critical for future business growth.
The make-up of this club used to be predominantly the real estate facilities team, but more often you are seeing IT staff having more votes. Which makes absolute sense as they are the users of the data center not facilities. When you talk to real estate, facilities, and data center operations about the services running in the data center, few know any details of what is running in the buildings.
The hard-core data center crowd would be offended by a term like being “hip”. And, Rich Miller makes an interesting comparison to “fight club.” Rich first brought up fight club analogy in June 3, 2006.
Wal-Mart, Data Centers and The Fight Club Rule
June 3rd, 2006 : Rich Miller“The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club.”
Some companies take the Fight Club approach with their data centers. You DO NOT talk about the data centers. One of these companies is Wal-Mart, which has piqued the curiosity of the media with its closed-mouth response to curiosity about the company’s 125,000 square foot data center in Joplin, Mo. The Joplin Globe describes it as a “building that Wal-Mart considers so secret that it won’t even let the county assessor inside without a nondisclosure agreement.” Wal-Mart gladly supplied them with more ammunition. “This is not something that we discuss publicly,” Wal-Mart senior information officer Carrie Thum told the paper. “We have no comment. And that’s off the record.”
The Globe isn’t afraid to speculate, however:
Wal-Mart’s ability to crunch numbers is a favorite of conspiracy theorists, and its data centers are the corporate counterpart to Area 51 at Groom Lake in the state of Nevada. According to one consumer activist, Katherine Albrecht, even the wildest conspiracy buff might be surprised at just how much Wal-Mart knows about its customers - and how much more it would like to know.
Rich goes on telling another example.
I once got a call from a large institution insisting that we not identify the state in which their data center was located. Not the street address mind you, the state. This person felt that even identifying the state presented a security risk. What made this even stranger was that this organization had purchased the facility through a bankruptcy auction, and the sale agreement (including the address) was a public record. The Fight Club approach doesn’t work too well once that much information is public, but some facility operators will persist in invoking it anyway.
As tax incentives get thrown around in bigger numbers more information is in the public records, and tax payers are demanding to see the benefits of funding data center construction in their local community.
Whether you are a “fight club” or a “hip” group, keep in mind the more tax incentives you receive the public is wanted to have a peak inside.
News.com has a post on the issue of data access in three different transit systems – NY, SF, and Portland. This is something to think about when considering smart grid projects and other projects that could affect data centers.
Who owns transit data?
Commuters on public transit want to know two fundamental things: when can I expect the bus or train to pick me up? And when will it drop me off at my destination?
Nowadays, they may also be wondering whether their local transit agency is willing to share that data with others to put it into new and helpful formats.
How likely is it that the arrival and departure information will be available on a site or service other than the official one? That depends on how open your local agency is. In some metro areas, transit agencies make data--routes, schedules, and even real-time vehicle location feeds--available to developers to mash into whatever applications they wish. In others, the agencies lock down their information, claiming it may not be reused without permission or fee.
When tax payers money is involved there are interesting views on what should happen.
In local blogs and on transit sites, outrage over agencies and companies that claim ownership of the data is growing. The core argument against locking down such data is that it's collected by or paid for by public, taxpayer-funded agencies and thus should be open to all citizens, and that schedule data by itself is not protectable content. The argument against is that the agencies might be able to profit from using the data if they can maintain control of it. The counter to that is the belief that if the data is open, clever developers will create cool apps that make transit systems more usable, thus increasing ridership and helping transit agencies live up to their charters of moving people around and getting as many private cars as possible off the roads.
StationStops gives New York metro rail commuters a timetable in their iPhones.
(Credit: StationStops)
Each city and metro area with a transit system is unique, but there are three cases in the U.S. that highlight the way the transit data drama can play out.
NY’s view treats data as copyrighted work.
New York locks down subway schedules
As reported last week at ReadWriteWeb and elsewhere, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Agency believes its public train schedules fall under copyright law and thus applied an interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to send a takedown notice to the developer of StationStops, an iPhone app that gives people access to train schedules on the Metro-North lines.
SF is taking a more open approach, but has its hiccups.
San Francisco writes data accessibility into contracts
The Routesy iPhone app uses NextBus data to predict transit arrival times.
(Credit: Routesy)
In San Francisco last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom unveiled (via TechCrunch) the Datasf.org initiative, which aims to put all the city's data online for open access. Included in the program is the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency's schedule data. There's no question that this is a positive development for San Francisco Bay Area transit app developers and that it sets a good precedent for developers elsewhere. However, static schedule data is not the whole story for transit apps, especially on systems where route schedules are poorly adhered to (on New York's Metro-North lines, the schedules are somewhat reliable; for San Francisco's MUNI buses, they are not). The most useful new apps collect real-time vehicle location data, and access to that information is not yet available from SFData.
In many cities, a company called NextBus gathers location data from vehicles and then makes that information available to the subscribing cities as well as on its own Web site. Developers of real-time transit iPhone apps, such as San Francisco's Routesy and iCommute, have had mixed results in getting access to that data.
Portland is the best.
Visit Portland for the best in transit apps
In Portland, Ore., openness on the part of the local transit agency has been a blessing for transit app developers. There are more than 25 apps that use the public TriMet data stream. Many of the apps duplicate others' functions and features, but it's just this kind of competition that makes apps better over time. When companies control data about their services and are the only ones to provide the apps that use the data, users do not get the same benefit of rapid application evolution.
Then there is google working with all three.
Google drives the bus
Google is the most aggressive company in the transit planning business. If you ask Google Maps for directions, by default it will route you by car, but you can also ask it to give you directions by public transit. In many metro areas, it will even direct you among different transit systems (from a local bus line to a commuter rail system, for example).
I travel to all three cities, and I agree Portland has the best system and is the most enjoyable to visit for public transit. The Portland Trimet system has this site for apps. And, a developer center.
It is popular to share the Top Best Practices in Data Centers. Google, Microsoft, eBay, and Sun have done this as many others have. But, what is interesting is how little time is spent on capturing the top data center mistakes. There are lots of experts discussing details that feed into a better PUE, and their experiences. New technology is promoted as being greener and energy efficient than other systems.
The latest term I’ve heard quite a bit is “holistic” approach in presentations at events like Data Center Dynamics. OK, I want a holistic solution where people are looking in the big picture. This fits with someone saying we are going to lower your TCO. Sounds good, I don’t want to buy from someone who is going to increase my TCO and create silo’d thinking.
If you don’t build data centers often you are at the mercy of the design and build data center construction trade. Mike Manos touched on the issues.
First a simple observation – the Data Center Industry as it stands today is in actuality an industry of cottage industries. Its an industry dominated by boutique firms in specialized niches all in support of the building out of these large technically complex facilities. For the initiated its a world full of religious arguments like battery versus rotary, air-side economization versus water-side economization, raised floor versus no raised floor. To the uninitiated its an industry categorized by mysterious wizards of calculus and fluid dynamics and magical electrical energies. Its an illusion the wizards of the collective cottage industries are well paid and incented to keep up. They ply their trade in ensuring that each facility’s creation is a one-off event, and likewise, so is the next one. Its a world of competing General Contractors, architecture firms, competing electrical and mechanical firms, of specialists in all sizes, shapes and colors. Ultimately – in my mind there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Everyone has the right to earn a buck no matter how inefficient the process.
WSJ has an article on the mistakes of investing that can shed some light on how people think about their decisions and mistakes.
The Mistakes We Make—and Why We Make Them
How investors think often gets in the way of their results. Meir Statman looks into our heads and tells us what we're doing wrong.
By MEIR STATMAN
What was I thinking?
If there's one question that investors have asked themselves over the past year and a half, it's that one. If only I had acted differently, they say. If only, if only, if only.
Yet here's the problem: While we know that we made investment mistakes, and vow not to repeat them, most people have only the vaguest sense of what those mistakes were, or, more important, why they made them. Why did we think and feel and behave as we did? Why did we act in a way that today, in hindsight, seems so obviously stupid? Only by understanding the answer to these questions can we begin to improve our financial future.
The author throws out a simple idea of behavior.
This is where behavioral finance comes in. Most investors are intelligent people, neither irrational nor insane. But behavioral finance tells us we are also normal, with brains that are often full and emotions that are often overflowing. And that means we are normal smart at times, and normal stupid at others.
The trick, therefore, is to learn to increase our ratio of smart behavior to stupid. And since we cannot (thank goodness) turn ourselves into computer-like people, we need to find tools to help us act smart even when our thinking and feelings tempt us to be stupid.
The problem with the data center mistakes is it is an emotional event that you want to hide and go away. But, if you had tools/software to help you act smarter as your thinking and feelings tempt you to do stupid things. Bad decisions are swept under the rug, fixed behind the scenes, costs transferred, excuses made, and as long as you are on schedule and budget, then most don’t care.
The tool can be simple, an excel spreadsheet tracking the decisions and SLAs of various technology used in a data center. What people made the decisions, what problem was it addressing, what are the expected results, costs, and ROI. You can treat these as stocks in a portfolio of investments in your data center.
Your perspective changes when you think of a portfolio of data center technology investments that have expected returns. Some will work, some will not. If you don’t list them. How will your learn from your mistakes?
Throw your data center construction team a “whack on the side of head.” Ask them, how are we going to track the mistakes we make in the data center construction?
I am waiting for the when someone adds this to their top data center practices. “We track our mistakes.”
eBay’s Olivier Sanche is a name recognized in the Mac community and data center industry with the announcement he will be joining Apple.
Apple's Going Greener with New Hire
Posted 08/13/2009 at 11:59:29am | by Danny Estrada
Apple just hired Oliver Sanche, eBay's former Senior Director of Data Centers Services and Stategies. Sanche also happens to be the leading expert on the greening of cloud computing facilities. Sanche was assisting eBay in its quest to become carbon neutral since 2007. His latest contribution to providing a world for your future Mac-using offspring, has been the overseeing of eBay's newest data-center, which will reach the second highest LEED standards when it goes live in 2010.
Now Apple is looking to clean up their footprint on our planet by using Sanche's services in overseeing their planned billion dollar, 500,000-square-foot facility in North Carolina that will serve as Apple's primary East Coast data center. Sanche has helped to combine and conserve eBay's energy uses by utilizing a combination of solar energy, facilities management, and the adoption of a high-quality carbon-offset program.
Here is a recent post that has eBay sharing its top 5 data center ideas to be green.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
eBay's Sustainable Data Center
Green is part of eBay’s DNA
Sustainability at eBay is a strong part of its culture. Its basic business model is all about sustainability, since it encourages reuse by establishing markets for used products. Continuing the sustainability theme in its operations, both grass roots employee initiatives and broader corporate programs have been launched. Some of these programs include:
I like the list because it is shorter than most who share ten ideas, and starts with a fundamental of research.
Here are the top two, for the remaining three you can go to the full post.
eBay’s Olivier Sanche “Top 5” to enhance Data Center sustainability
1) Research best practices.
There are many excellent resources available including Climate Savers, Green Grid, and Data Center Pulse. Such resources can help a business determine which activities provide the biggest improvements, learn how to implement current best practices, understand trends to plan accordingly, and connect with other data center professionals interested in sustainability.
#2 is an end to end view few talk about as they themselves are in silos.
2) Baseline current energy costs, apply appropriate metrics and break-down silos.
If not already part of the data center budget, DC energy costs should be moved to the DC budget to provide the necessary visibility to manage. To improve energy utilization, DC’s usually focus on making the plant and equipment more efficient, but it is just as important to understand how the equipment is used. To illustrate his point, Olivier shared an analogy. When comparing a Hummer and a Prius when looking at mpg, the Prius wins. But if the Hummer is carrying eight people and the Prius is only carrying one person, the person-miles per gallon makes the Hummer more efficient. To understand an analogous person-miles per gallon at the data center, an important metric is “computing per watt”.
It is necessary to partner with application delivery, engineering, architecture and operations to enhance the computing per watt metric. According to Olivier, “a major problem is that a DC is typically siloed from other parts of the organization.” Olivier made the effort to seek out his partners to share the data on energy use and then work together across the organization to find creative solutions. Without data and metrics, each department will likely focus on their activities and sub-optimize to the determent of the overall goal of sustainability. Armed with the end-to-end view, increasing utilization became a critical goal. The next step was to fine-tune applications, middleware, network, o/s to work better together to perform a function or service or eliminate unneeded code to further drive down energy use. Combining energy reduction for both the equipment and services using the equipment is comparable to using two Prius’s to transport eight passengers and abandoning the Hummer altogether.
