I was on Data Center Knowledge this morning reading about Greenpeace putting Apple's new data center in their crosshairs for not being Green enough. Isn't this Facebook all over again? Based on the data I have seen, it sure smells like it.
Can someone please point me to an energy product and a company that Greenpeace actually endorses? This rock throwing and shit stirring is old. I would love to see how many people use iPads at Greenpeace vs. charcoal on birchbark from fallen birch trees to read, write and comment on stories they post online.
It's easy to throw rocks and shir the shit pot, but not so easy to develop, test, market, and put your brand on a product or set of products that people want to use. To hide behind the fact that making things is not your business and provide no solution is another version of a whiny child, not a business. And therein lies the rub - Apple is a business. They have Shareholders - Greenpeace is an activist organization and has supporters. Shareholders use their money to give to a company to increase the value of the shares they own by making something useful. Greenpeace doesn't worry about having a bad quarter. Apple does. Greenpeace's currency is emotion, Apple's is cash.
So while Greenpeace has a vested interest in stirring up shit to create emotionally charged situations (that's how they make more 'currency' and stay relevant) Apple has a responsibility to make more money and if they care to engage in emotionally charged debates, they exchange their currency (money) for Greenpeace's (emotion). Since most people don't pay bills with emotion, it's a slippery slope for Apple to engage in currency speculation in these situations in my opinion.
I hope Apple points this out - that they are a business - not an emotion based activist organization, and have a responsibility to their shareholders. Period. And from what I can tell based on their cash position, they are being very responsible to their shareholders. As for building a data center that isn't green? Until there is a source of energy generation developed (by Greenpeace or someone else) that can produce an equivalent unit of power that burning coal does, or change the regulations in the United States to foster the research and development for said source, go back to your birchbark and charcoal.
And one more thing... How many Apple shareholders rely on Greenpeace for their retirement?
Showing posts with label green energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green energy. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Fuel Cells and Green Tech in the Data Center
An industry peer, Ken Jamaca from Silverback tech gave me a heads up on an article whose subject is one of great interest to me - Fuel Cells in the data center.
One reason it is of great interest is that the current electricity grid in the US is resilient, barely, and has been for some time. Adding load to it does not help the problem, and given the lack of a US Energy policy generation is hard to come by and getting new power plants approved are even more difficult. Not great news to folks looking to construct new data centers as data centers are about access to power. Period. The other reason is that I am embarking on a new data center venture that will bring a new data center platform to the market.
Wind has generated the most buzz and been deployed the most in the US as a solution to increasing generation capacity and giving us more electrons to consume in a 'green' way. Wind is great - so long as the wind is blowing and since it is inconsistent (unreliable) as a power source, and it's expensive to store the electricity, it is used as a mix of total power available to customers. Solar is also a solution that has generated a lot of buzz however the land area required to put PV panels up is so large to be meaningful to a data center that many solar installations on roofs of large data centers and commercial buildings only provide enough electricity for parking lot lights and ambient lighting in hallways and common areas.
Fuel cells are getting more attention and the technology seems to be advancing as fast as it ever has. Bloom Energy has garnered the majority of the buzz in the market, and UTC (United Technologies) to a lesser extent, and there are some new entrants that have reached out to me to discuss their approaches and solutions.
As I have gotten into the nitty gritty of designing a system that is reliable, off grid, and can support a multi megawatt installation, some interesting things have popped up that have nothing to do with the technology, but have to do with a 100 year old set of policies, tarriffs, and agreements that make it difficult for a company to adopt the technology, especially a data center that wants 5 nines. Let me explain a little...
One major factor is utility costs per kWh and kW. Many utilities have 'demand charges' and 'stand by' charges that will impact the economics of the approach and drive design of a fuel cell system. Some also use what is called a ratcheted rates or tariffs. Should the data center need to transfer from fuel cell to the power grid/utility for backup, the demand charge is the charge per month for the next 12 months.
So say you’re paying $5,000/mo demand charge every month for 500 kW for a computer room. Then the fuel cell system trips off for even a few seconds, the full kW demand of the facility is now the current demand for the next 12 months. So say that 500 kW goes to 2,500 kW at $10.00/kW the new monthly charge is now $25,000 for the next 12 months. Ouch.
Developers need to play close attention to the tariffs and the structure of where they build these systems. The utilities clearly do not want onsite power in many cases and write the tariffs deliberately to keep out self generation. In some smaller municipal utilities they may welcome exporting excess power to the grid as a peaker during the summer months to help carry load on the grid for when every home turns on air conditioning during a heat wave. In other cases they may not want these solutions in their service area due to the adverse impact on transmission capacity on the local circuits and upgrade costs to meet the need should the facility go down.
So a word to the States, counties, towns, and municipalities looking to attract data centers, jobs, and tax revenues: Electricity matters more than anything.
The ability for a facility to generate power for themselves, especially low to zero carbon footprint power, and still be served by a utility as back up vs. primary power flips the 100 year old electricity business model on it head. This creates a threat for the utilities, because there are now competitive technologies made by companies that aren't restricted by a 100 year old business model, and will serve customers faster.
While the cost is still high for these newer 'greener' systems, the price comes down as adoption prolifererates. The confluence of technology, its incresing reliability, and the ultimate development of an alternative electricity ecosystem will seismically shift the models and markets.
I don't know about you, but after 100 years, I am ready to try something new.
One reason it is of great interest is that the current electricity grid in the US is resilient, barely, and has been for some time. Adding load to it does not help the problem, and given the lack of a US Energy policy generation is hard to come by and getting new power plants approved are even more difficult. Not great news to folks looking to construct new data centers as data centers are about access to power. Period. The other reason is that I am embarking on a new data center venture that will bring a new data center platform to the market.
Wind has generated the most buzz and been deployed the most in the US as a solution to increasing generation capacity and giving us more electrons to consume in a 'green' way. Wind is great - so long as the wind is blowing and since it is inconsistent (unreliable) as a power source, and it's expensive to store the electricity, it is used as a mix of total power available to customers. Solar is also a solution that has generated a lot of buzz however the land area required to put PV panels up is so large to be meaningful to a data center that many solar installations on roofs of large data centers and commercial buildings only provide enough electricity for parking lot lights and ambient lighting in hallways and common areas.
Fuel cells are getting more attention and the technology seems to be advancing as fast as it ever has. Bloom Energy has garnered the majority of the buzz in the market, and UTC (United Technologies) to a lesser extent, and there are some new entrants that have reached out to me to discuss their approaches and solutions.
As I have gotten into the nitty gritty of designing a system that is reliable, off grid, and can support a multi megawatt installation, some interesting things have popped up that have nothing to do with the technology, but have to do with a 100 year old set of policies, tarriffs, and agreements that make it difficult for a company to adopt the technology, especially a data center that wants 5 nines. Let me explain a little...
One major factor is utility costs per kWh and kW. Many utilities have 'demand charges' and 'stand by' charges that will impact the economics of the approach and drive design of a fuel cell system. Some also use what is called a ratcheted rates or tariffs. Should the data center need to transfer from fuel cell to the power grid/utility for backup, the demand charge is the charge per month for the next 12 months.
So say you’re paying $5,000/mo demand charge every month for 500 kW for a computer room. Then the fuel cell system trips off for even a few seconds, the full kW demand of the facility is now the current demand for the next 12 months. So say that 500 kW goes to 2,500 kW at $10.00/kW the new monthly charge is now $25,000 for the next 12 months. Ouch.
Developers need to play close attention to the tariffs and the structure of where they build these systems. The utilities clearly do not want onsite power in many cases and write the tariffs deliberately to keep out self generation. In some smaller municipal utilities they may welcome exporting excess power to the grid as a peaker during the summer months to help carry load on the grid for when every home turns on air conditioning during a heat wave. In other cases they may not want these solutions in their service area due to the adverse impact on transmission capacity on the local circuits and upgrade costs to meet the need should the facility go down.
So a word to the States, counties, towns, and municipalities looking to attract data centers, jobs, and tax revenues: Electricity matters more than anything.
The ability for a facility to generate power for themselves, especially low to zero carbon footprint power, and still be served by a utility as back up vs. primary power flips the 100 year old electricity business model on it head. This creates a threat for the utilities, because there are now competitive technologies made by companies that aren't restricted by a 100 year old business model, and will serve customers faster.
While the cost is still high for these newer 'greener' systems, the price comes down as adoption prolifererates. The confluence of technology, its incresing reliability, and the ultimate development of an alternative electricity ecosystem will seismically shift the models and markets.
I don't know about you, but after 100 years, I am ready to try something new.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Green IT shell game
I was doing research for an RFP yesterday about carbon footprints as they related to PUE, Data Center Operations, and IT resources in general. What I realized was that IT still looks at itself in silos, not systems. Let me explain...
This morning I got my copy of eWeek and on the cover was a pointer to Green IT Solutions - The Real Deal - on page 16. I'll admit I didnt spend a lot of time on the article because it was just like 100 others I have read the past few months that follow a simple formula:
Virtualization = Green
Um, not exactly...
Let me take you through a systems view of carbon in the data center operations:
The PUE of most data centers is 2.0 or higher. This means that for every dollar spent on powering servers, an additional dollar is spent on common facilities electricity to support systems. In the container model. The PUE is 1.2 which means 80 cents of every dollar captured for common facilities/infrastructure is saved. For a 500 KW deployment with a $0.10 per Kwh charge it means that in a data center with a PUE of 2.0, the cost is $73,000 for electricity. With a PUE of 1.2 the cost is $43,800. Savings per month of $29,200, and all of the electricity is green.
To produce a Kw of electricity from coal, 2.3lbs of carbon are produced (see http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html), so for a 500Kwh environment, multiplied by 2.3 lbs per Kwh is 839,500 pounds or 419 tons per month. Since wind eliminates 98% of carbon emissions, the net carbon footprint per month drops to 8.4 tons per month (see http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn268.pdf)
When I look at a virtualization = Green example I see some major gotchas:
1. New equipment will likely need to be purchased. The manufacturing process is not carbon-light.
2. This means more mercury and other nasty stuff in the new equipment plus the old equipment. recycling gets you a couple of brownie points.
3. If a new data center is constructed, or leased, or expanded there is the cost of manufacturing, transporting, and assembling all of the components. If it's still powered by coal - you gained nothing
My point being Virtualization is NOT/KINDA Green and has a measureable but not significant reduction in carbon footprint. My personal stance is that you are far better off getting your utility to get wind energy into your data center and cut carbon by the boatload. Better yet, get wind produced power, use an existing data center someplace cool and open the windows when you can.
The other thing I found very amusing in my research was the data center with a LEED Platinum rating and was powered by multiple 50+ year old coal plants. It's like tinting mercury pink to make it 'safe' isn't it?
This morning I got my copy of eWeek and on the cover was a pointer to Green IT Solutions - The Real Deal - on page 16. I'll admit I didnt spend a lot of time on the article because it was just like 100 others I have read the past few months that follow a simple formula:
Virtualization = Green
Um, not exactly...
Let me take you through a systems view of carbon in the data center operations:
The PUE of most data centers is 2.0 or higher. This means that for every dollar spent on powering servers, an additional dollar is spent on common facilities electricity to support systems. In the container model. The PUE is 1.2 which means 80 cents of every dollar captured for common facilities/infrastructure is saved. For a 500 KW deployment with a $0.10 per Kwh charge it means that in a data center with a PUE of 2.0, the cost is $73,000 for electricity. With a PUE of 1.2 the cost is $43,800. Savings per month of $29,200, and all of the electricity is green.
To produce a Kw of electricity from coal, 2.3lbs of carbon are produced (see http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html), so for a 500Kwh environment, multiplied by 2.3 lbs per Kwh is 839,500 pounds or 419 tons per month. Since wind eliminates 98% of carbon emissions, the net carbon footprint per month drops to 8.4 tons per month (see http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn268.pdf)
When I look at a virtualization = Green example I see some major gotchas:
1. New equipment will likely need to be purchased. The manufacturing process is not carbon-light.
2. This means more mercury and other nasty stuff in the new equipment plus the old equipment. recycling gets you a couple of brownie points.
3. If a new data center is constructed, or leased, or expanded there is the cost of manufacturing, transporting, and assembling all of the components. If it's still powered by coal - you gained nothing
My point being Virtualization is NOT/KINDA Green and has a measureable but not significant reduction in carbon footprint. My personal stance is that you are far better off getting your utility to get wind energy into your data center and cut carbon by the boatload. Better yet, get wind produced power, use an existing data center someplace cool and open the windows when you can.
The other thing I found very amusing in my research was the data center with a LEED Platinum rating and was powered by multiple 50+ year old coal plants. It's like tinting mercury pink to make it 'safe' isn't it?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Are you Green? Are you REC-less?
I have been looking into renewable energy sources for data centers a lot lately. Why? Because it is responsible, necessary and a way to stimulate the changes that must occur in the nation's electricity grid that is up to 100 years old in places.
The whole Virtualization movement got me thinking about this a couple of years ago, because I noticed that when my customers deployed blades and other high density solutions to support virtualization a funny thing happened - electricity draw to the cabinets almost doubled.
So the footprint shrinks but the electricity (and cooling) goes up dramatically. So I asked the next question which was - if I double my energy draw and that energy is not green (wind, biomass, nuclear, etc.) how am I reducing carbon? Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not. Oh but wait, my utility lets be purchase RECs - Renewable Energy Certificates so I am all set.
Next question - aren't REC's like putting a 'save the earth' sticker on a Hummer? It's feel good green - not measureable green.
So What is the answer? How do you get truly green? How do you move beyond the 'we print on both sides of the paper' and 'we turn off the lights at the diesel refinery' feel good green into actual, 'I am doing something that is not only measurable but so green it's almost black' when looking at our IT infrastructure?
Stay tuned for more. There is a way, using 'off the shelf ' technology and sources of power to do this. And it will save you roughly $6,000/year per cabinet/rack on electricity alone, let alone what the carbon reduction is. Can you say FAT bonus?
The whole Virtualization movement got me thinking about this a couple of years ago, because I noticed that when my customers deployed blades and other high density solutions to support virtualization a funny thing happened - electricity draw to the cabinets almost doubled.
So the footprint shrinks but the electricity (and cooling) goes up dramatically. So I asked the next question which was - if I double my energy draw and that energy is not green (wind, biomass, nuclear, etc.) how am I reducing carbon? Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not. Oh but wait, my utility lets be purchase RECs - Renewable Energy Certificates so I am all set.
Next question - aren't REC's like putting a 'save the earth' sticker on a Hummer? It's feel good green - not measureable green.
So What is the answer? How do you get truly green? How do you move beyond the 'we print on both sides of the paper' and 'we turn off the lights at the diesel refinery' feel good green into actual, 'I am doing something that is not only measurable but so green it's almost black' when looking at our IT infrastructure?
Stay tuned for more. There is a way, using 'off the shelf ' technology and sources of power to do this. And it will save you roughly $6,000/year per cabinet/rack on electricity alone, let alone what the carbon reduction is. Can you say FAT bonus?
Monday, April 13, 2009
Is a Green Data Center even possible?
This was the question running through my mind this weekend, and assuming it was, who would build it, what makes it green, and is it a standard? Yes, my mind was quite active this weekend…
The question came up after a chat I had with Austin Energy and the State of Michigan last week about wind power projects – both current and future. Why wind you might ask? Because right now it is fashionable, generates more electricity than solar on the same footprint, and it works. In the data center world however, you plan for the crazy what if’s, in this case no wind for a month, so you do need to have back up at the ready, preferably Natural Gas. T. Boone Pickens has studied this extensively.
So let’s consider that we have access to wind generation, the issue that I have seen is that the grid, at least the ERCOT one, is not designed to have more generation that it has today. So you can generate thousands of megawatts from May-October during the windy ‘tornado’ season but because the transmission grid can’t do anything with the capacity being generated you turn off the generation capability so you don’t bring down the entire US power grid. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Given how much electricity data centers consume and need to sustain growth, it seems there should be a louder voice out there telling utilities to upgrade their power systems. There isn’t though. Why? Money. If I own a utility that gets a lot of electricity generated by wind (inexpensive), then any upgrades I make to my power system are going to help my competition more than me (potentially). So they don’t get done.
So while there is all this effort out there being spent on building generation, until we give the Grid an upgrade it will be the equivalent of watching high definition TV over dial up. There will be a lot more content (electricity) than availability to deliver (bandwidth).
I believe this is what ultimately will hold back expansion the most, of both data centers AND the proliferation of getting green energy to some of the largest consumers of power out there. Your friendly, stark, neighborhood data center.
The question came up after a chat I had with Austin Energy and the State of Michigan last week about wind power projects – both current and future. Why wind you might ask? Because right now it is fashionable, generates more electricity than solar on the same footprint, and it works. In the data center world however, you plan for the crazy what if’s, in this case no wind for a month, so you do need to have back up at the ready, preferably Natural Gas. T. Boone Pickens has studied this extensively.
So let’s consider that we have access to wind generation, the issue that I have seen is that the grid, at least the ERCOT one, is not designed to have more generation that it has today. So you can generate thousands of megawatts from May-October during the windy ‘tornado’ season but because the transmission grid can’t do anything with the capacity being generated you turn off the generation capability so you don’t bring down the entire US power grid. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Given how much electricity data centers consume and need to sustain growth, it seems there should be a louder voice out there telling utilities to upgrade their power systems. There isn’t though. Why? Money. If I own a utility that gets a lot of electricity generated by wind (inexpensive), then any upgrades I make to my power system are going to help my competition more than me (potentially). So they don’t get done.
So while there is all this effort out there being spent on building generation, until we give the Grid an upgrade it will be the equivalent of watching high definition TV over dial up. There will be a lot more content (electricity) than availability to deliver (bandwidth).
I believe this is what ultimately will hold back expansion the most, of both data centers AND the proliferation of getting green energy to some of the largest consumers of power out there. Your friendly, stark, neighborhood data center.
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