Khosla says Environmentalist are barrier for Green Tech

News.com reports on a keynote by Vino Khosla at AlwaysOn Green conference.  And, one of the statements is environmentalists are a barrier.

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• GREEN TECH

Khosla: Environmentalists, get out of way

By: Martin LaMonica SEPTEMBER 27, 2011 11:02 AM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO--Vinod Khosla is famous for investing lots of money in green technologies. But when it comes to his role models, it's all Steve Jobs, not Al Gore.

Khosla was interviewed today at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference here, where he espoused the idea of making big bets on potentially game-changing companies.

The controversial statement is environmentalists are clueless.

Even though Khosla got into green-tech investing out of environmental concerns, he said environmentalists have been a barrier to green tech because they assume that people need to pay more for cleaner alternatives to the status quo. They understand what the problems are, but when it comes to coming up with technology solutions, he said, "they don't have clue."

Twitter's Michael Abbott discusses Mobile

Twitter's Michael Abbott discusses Mobile at GigaOm Mobilize.

TWITTER AND ENGINEERING FOR MOBILE

Michael Abbot is a Valley legend in mobility, with stints at Palm and HP, among others. He now leads engineering at Twitter. Om talks to Michael about how Twitter's commitment to mobile and the Twitter ecosystem will shape the platform and what considerations he has to make in creating the perfect platform for sustaining a mobile experience and third-party developer ecosystem.

Moderated by:Om Malik - Founder, GigaOM
Speakers:Michael Abbott - VP Engineering, Twitter

Here is the data center related comment, making more infrastructure changes in past 9 months than 5 years.

jayfry3 Jay Fry

Avoiding the failwhale: Abbott tells @om Twitter's made "more infrastructure changes in the last 9 mo than the previous 5 yrs" #mobilizeconf

Rafe Rafe Needleman

Twitter VP Engineering Michael Abbott: "We're not a social network, we're an information network." #mobilizeconf #cnet

To give you an idea of scale.

cpen Carolyn Penner

45% of tweets come from mobile and we're seeing north of 230 million tweets per day - @mabb0tt #MobilizeConf

Vantage picks Quincy for Green Data Center site

Here is a press release describing Vantage's purchase of 63 acres in Quincy, WA.

Vantage Data Centers Launches Washington State Data Center Campus Project with Fortune 50 Anchor Customer

Quincy, WA Campus Offers Clean and Cheap Power with Room to Scale

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sep 27, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Vantage Data Centers, an innovative wholesale data center owner, developer and operator, announced today that it is under contract to purchase 63 acres of land for the development of enterprise class data centers in Quincy, Washington. A Fortune 50 leading manufacturing and technology company has signed a lease to be the first customer at the Washington campus.

Part of the move to Quincy is motivated to develop a Green Data Center.

Vantage selected Quincy because of the area's low-cost/low carbon/ultra-green hydro power served by the Columbia River Basin, an unequaled source of renewable power in North America. The Quincy project will mark Vantage's second campus designed for LEED(R) Platinum certification and further validates its commitment to sustainable design and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

Clean hydro power, combined with Vantage design and collaboration expertise, will help Vantage customers minimize operating expenses while supporting clean energy initiatives. The project also includes the construction of a dedicated 41 MW 2N (fully redundant) dual fed substation with expansion capability and high efficiency distribution electrical systems.

Wal-Mart buys 24 acres of land for Data Center in Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs reports on Wal-Mart's decision to build a data center.

Wal-Mart spends $5.3 million to buy data center site

Comments 0

September 26, 2011 5:57 PM

RICH LADEN

THE GAZETTE

Wal-Mart, which announced in July that it would build a 210,000-square-foot corporate data center in northern Colorado Springs, has finalized its purchase of the site — paying about $5.3 million for the land.

The world’s largest retailer completed its purchase Friday, buying four parcels totaling 24 acres along Federal Drive, southeast of InterQuest and Voyager parkways, according to documents recorded with the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.

Wal-Mart joins the following companies in building a data center in Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs is home to data centers for Progressive Insurance, FedEx and Hewlett-Packard, and business leaders hope to attract more such facilities. A Springs general contractor has proposed creation of a business park on the city’s south side that would be home to several data centers.

Why the Springs? City and economic development officials have touted its low-cost and reliable electricity, highly educated workforce and its location largely free from natural disasters as major pluses.

2012 Olympics tip Verizon/Terremark data center decision to Amsterdam over London

ComputerWeekly reports on Verizon/Terremark's decision to build a data center in Amsterdam over London due to the 2012 Olympics creating a power shortage.

Verizon rejects London datacentre site due to Olympic Games power drain

Kathleen Hall

Friday 23 September 2011 11:03

Concerns over power shortages led to Verizon Business dismissing London as the site for its flagship datacentre.

Verizon Business was worried about the availability of power because of the Olympic Games to be hosted in London next year. The company chose Amsterdam instead.

The President of Verizon Europe made the following statement.

Hermann Oggel, president of European business at Terremark, told delegates at Verizon's annual business conference that the choice of locations was between London and Amsterdam.

"London was full with the Olympics, with no power. And power is a big issue," Oggel said. "We spoke to utility companies in London and looked at premises, but found it economically better to manage from Amsterdam."

Here is the new NAP of Amsterdam Data Center as reported on DataCent

An aerial view of the new Terremark NAP of Amsterdam, the company's latest network access point.