[victor gooodman]

As a principal of a data center in Los Angeles, and working in data centers for over six years, I became very aware of the extreme waste of power and CO2 production in data centers. While this is not well know among the general population, most people are not aware of the negative effects on the environment of the use of the internet.

Now, far be it for me to critcize the use of the internet, and it is clear, that there may be ways (many) in which the internet saves energy, but the fact is millions of computers are now running around the world, and tied to the web that did not use to be prior to the invention of the internet by Al Gore:)

And most of these servers are in data center. I have read that currently 8 percent of all the electric power used in the United States is being used in data centers. While one can Google this number, and/or argue about it, the fact is that the 'net requires alot of energy. In addition in many case 1/2 the energy or more is used just to coo the servers.

Anyone who goes to a data center for the first time amazed at the massive number of machines which run 24/7/365 and the consumption of electricity

I read somewhere the Cameron the director from Avatar use many thousands of computers running serveral years to produce the CGI to create his anti-technology movie, a bit ironic, since the film was a result of pure technology and anything but green.

Oh well.

Regardless, the internet is here to stay, and all in all a good thing , I imagine, but in that light, I do note than many companies are making an effort to make their servers more efficient and many companies are building more effficient data centers.

I hope this blog starts a discussion where people in the tech sector can share ways conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions as a result of data center and internet use.

Our company Coporate Colocation has done such a thing and built the first data center in Los Angeles, which saves significant energy and cuts CO2 emissions.

Though a combintion of ducting, hot and cold aisle containment and exhaust fans, we have created a prototype of a Green Data Center for Los Angeles.

Without going into great deal in this post, while traditional data centers use Cooling Technologies which require high energy use , our design, which is currently in operation is running, 100% on "Free Air," in effect only using fans to cool the datacenter.

We started free cooling on this past Sunday, and the compressors, there for back up, have not turned on yet.

We are running 100% on free air.

Our engineer figure we will cut our energy costs of cooling in excess of 50% and saving thousands of tons of C02 per year.

It was alot of fun to build this data center and we sunk all our personl money into it, not even being sure it word work.

But to say to say I had a smile on my face last Sunday when we turned off the Libert Units and turned on "free air," is an understatement.

[Link]

victor gooodman, on 04 March 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

And most of these servers are in data center. I have read that currently 8 percent of all the electric power used in the United States is being used in data centers. While one can Google this number, and/or argue about it, the fact is that the 'net requires alot of energy. In addition in many case 1/2 the energy or more is used just to coo the servers.

That's quite a lot. The internet is a luxury that most people probably aren't going to give up, so it's good thinking to try to keep the energy as low cost and efficient as possible. But this goes for everything really.

I recent years I have also begun to question whether or not movies are worth the cost. A CGI movie costs a lot of electricity, but a non-CGI movie would cost a lot of other things. This is really depressing because I love movies.

victor gooodman, on 04 March 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

I hope this blog starts a discussion where people in the tech sector can share ways conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions as a result of data center and internet use.

Here's hoping. Fingers crossed and all.