Everyone’s opinion matters so, Google has launched a new “Green” website touting top-line statistics about the company’s energy mix and electricity use. It is one of the steps toward transparency about its environmental impact. Now, the world’s second most valuable brand, Google has been overtaken by Apple, whose estimated brand value is more than $153 billion. Brand rankings are dominated by technology companies, with six out of the top 10 places occupied by Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, AT&T and China Mobile.
There is a lot of information available on the Internet. Over New Year’s weekend this year, Facebook users uploaded a record 750 million photos. 100 million photos get uploaded to Facebook each day. Typically, data that is created and uploaded to websites like Facebook is stored at data centers sometimes referred to as server farms or server clusters. All of this data available to anyone, sitting on a few powerful computers called server farms or data centers – massive buildings or warehouses full of telecommunications equipment. Disk storage space on these servers has to contain a lot of inventory, even if the inventory is in digital form. There must be enough fast computing power to manage user information.
Amazon’s Web Services EC2 platform uses 40,000 servers. That does not include the number of servers Amazon must use for it’s well-known online store. Google owns more than 450,000 servers, and with at least 45,000 servers in each data center location. Several recent studies and articles have shown that a simple Google search can result in 1-10 grams of CO2 emissions. Household computers create 60 grams of greenhouse gas emissions per hour. Processors have increased in computing power. With over 200 million internet searches per day in the US alone, creates 2000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per day. The internet accounts for 3 percent of US electricity consumption and 2 percent of global CO2 emissions.
An article called “The Greening of Server Farms” by Roger Allan claims that “worldwide, estimates are that more than 60 million servers are in operation today, consuming a whopping 60 GW of energy.” In the same article Allan says most of that energy is wasted because server farms still “draw 60% of their peak power demand even when they are doing nothing.
Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft says 85% of IT professionals have no idea how much energy their applications use. Equipment efficiency is one part of the puzzle. Data centers are only as efficient as the applications that run on their servers. In her paper “The Energy Nightmare of Server Farms,” Jane Anne Morris states “the 2006 electricity demand of major search engine facilities (just a small portion of the Cloud) use[d] an estimated 5000 megawatts. Converted to residences, that’s about five million homes’ worth of electric capacity. Converted to electricity generation, that’s ten 500 MW coal plants”.
A growing trend toward cloud computing is making online computing more energy-efficient. Cloud computing allows users to access products and services like applications and data storage remotely. By storing and running processes on the “cloud,” websites can share the resources stored on a wide network of servers, which can keep them from going idle and wasting the energy used to power them.
Microsoft commissioned a study this year conducted by IT consulting firm Accenture who estimated that companies could cut energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent by switching over to the cloud. Environmental groups are skeptical. Environmentalists are concerned about the industry’s apparent confusion with the difference between efficiency and sustainability. While energy efficiency is a worthy goal to strive for, they are asking if it can it still be considered a step towards sustainability even as the technology becomes more ubiquitous?
“There is a lot more proof that needs to be put in place to show that the cloud can be green,” said Simon Mingay, Gartner’s vice president of research. In collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund, his firm recently released a study examining the carbon footprint of the ICT industry. “Whilst we all recognize the potential of it, I haven’t seen anything yet that convinces me that that’s a reality today,” Mingay said.
Next generation data centers that tap into alternative energy. Last year, Hewlett-Packard built a data center with a fan-based cooling system. Yahoo opened a data facility designed to work like a chicken coop, allowing hot air to vent off the top of the housing. Last fall Google decided to work with Greenhouse Gas Services, a GE and AES joint venture, to capture and destroy landfill methane emissions from a North Carolina landfill.
Google is pressuring the industry to open up and show its cards. It is no longer enough to keep insisting that the availability of data helps the world go ’round more smoothly. It is time for the IT industry to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.
Dennis Walsh is a sustainability researcher, writer and consultant. Read his sustainability blog …
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