in the great greenpeace versus mohney debate, i am switerland - by Paula Bernier

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 14 2010) Carbon Footprint

1. 

   A recent report from Greenpeace talks about how cloud computing is driving companies like Facebook and Google to make ever-larger investments in data centers, many of which it says are being powered by “dirty coal”.

    Here’s one excerpt:

   “For example, in January 2010, Facebook commissioned a new data centre in Oregon and committed to a power service provider agreement with PacificCorp, a utility that gets the majority of its energy from coal-fired power stations, the United States’ largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Effectively becoming an industrial-scale consumer of electricity, Facebook now faces the same choices and challenges that other large ‘cloud-computing’ companies have in building their data centres. With a premium being placed on access to the cheapest electricity available on the grid. In many countries, this means dirty coal.”

    Despite campaigns around “clean coal”, I’m pretty sure there’s no difference between the clean and the dirty in this case. Also, that second to last sentence in the excerpt isn’t even a sentence. But I digress.

    Greenpeace’s point is that the rise of cloud computing, as well as the introduction of new devices like the iPad, are going to drive new requirements for power, and ozone-clogging sources like coal are likely to be used in at least some cases.

    To that I can only say: Duh.

    Clearly, the more devices and demand for networking services and content, the more demand for energy to power it all. That would seem to be the case whether applications and storage reside in a data center or anywhere else. So, clearly, whenever possible it makes sense to take steps to use energy sources that are renewable and have the least negative impacts on the environment. And I think that’s what Greenpeace was getting at in its report, even if the organization itself might seem hypocritical because it uses high-tech communications to get the message out.

    But while my response to all this is less than emotional, not everybody in the blogosphere was so mildly touched. 

    Reading the Greenpeace report seemed to whip into a frenzy my usually serene industry buddy and co-blogger Doug Mohney.

    Here’s an excerpt from his blog:

   “Not content to clean up its own usage of coal-based energy, Greenpeace decided to leverage the onslaught of iPad hype to take another hypocritical swipe at the IT sector by linking cloud computing to ‘dirty’ coal power. I guess if you are a preacher on a soap box, you can ignore how you got the soap box in the first place.”

    Right. I guess we all do our fair share of preaching.

    That said, we can all spend our personal energies using language like “dirty coal” and “hypocritical swipe” (sorry Doug, you know I love you man!), or we can just calmly discuss the options and try to settle on solutions that allow us to enjoy all the great new innovations in tech with at the same time loving sweet Mother Earth.

    

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