Cambridge, Mass.—Presidential debates are as much about style as they are about substance. But at a debate on energy at MIT on Friday, representatives from the Romney and Obama campaigns discussed the candidates’ views on energy in detail and drew clear differences between them on this issue.
In a new twist on using waste for energy, Microsoft is designing a data center powered by biogas, the gas given off from landfills and other sources. The company last week further detailed its Data Plant experiment, an idea to bring more reliability to its data centers and lower pollution from them. Fuel cells would supply power to the data center and make it independent from the grid, said Christian Belady, general manager of Data Center Services in a blog post last week. In theory, having on-site power allows a data center operator to use the electric grid as bac up or combine both sources. Microsoft is now researching a small-scale experiment to measure the performance and benefits and is seeking a location to test a prototype, Belady said.
A day after being criticized by Greenpeace for its energy practices, Apple said Greenpeace's estimates for power use at the company's latest data center are much too high. Apple said that its data center now under construction in North Carolina will use about 20 megawatts at full capacity. Greenpeace put the estimate at 100 megawatts. Greenpeace gave Apple, Amazon, and other companies low marks for locating their data centers in areas that rely heavily on coal and "dangerous nuclear." Those companies also scored lower than competitors, including Google and Yahoo, because they disclose less information on energy use. Before publishing its report yesterday, Greenpeace shared its estimate for the power Apple's North Carolina power plant would use based on the size of the investment and size of the facility. Apple (and Amazon) told Greenpeace the number was incorrect but didn't offer a more accurate number.
Even with the exciting work being done on energy at countless labs and startups, Bill Gates isn't counting on a repeat of what happened with info tech.
Speaking at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit here today, Gates argued that the amount of government funding for energy research and development should be doubled to speed the pace of innovation.
Even with a massive increase in research and other policy mechanisms, such as a tax on carbon emissions, Gates said energy moves slowly just by its nature. Unlike IT, the energy industry is capital-intensive and heavily regulated, and its underlying hardware, such as power plants, takes decades to swap out.
"The IT revolution is the exception that has warped people's minds in how quickly things work," Gates said. "It's very different than having a software company--or even a chip factory, where your innovation cycles are two or three years ...
