Checking up on some claims about green web hosting

I've been looking at a lot of green web hosting companies, and I've seen the same statements over and over again.

• The average server produces the same emissions as a 15 mpg SUV


• Datacenters take 4% of the world's electricity.


• Global warming is a concern for 90% of people.


• Only 3% of web hosting companies are going green.


• Going green costs 31% more than using dirty electricity.


• Being socially responsible is cool.

Let's be clear about this - most computer server makers aren't focused on energy efficiency. They're focused on cramming the most computing power into the smallest space possible, that ends up using a lot of electricity, the equipment generates a lot of heat, and the data center then is highly air conditioned to manage the heat, and all of that requires a lot of energy to run the systems and air conditioners.

In a 2008 article on treehugger The Rocky Mountain Institute gave these figures: In 2000, data centers comprised 0.8 percent of total US electrical consumption. By 2005, despite a 7 percent growth in electricity production, data centers' power consumption grew to 1.4 percent of the total, the equivalent of seven medium-sized (750 MW) power plants. By 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration, that amount is expected to reach 2.3 percent. Not quite the 4% some of the hosting providers are claiming.

RMI has produced a presentation that shows an approach for a radically efficient and profitable data center design.



Supposedly: "Data center energy growth threatens profitability and contributes to global climate change".. Computer system architecture requires that increasing compute power through increasing chip speed requires also increasing power levels. Increasing chip speeds is accompanied by increased power and increased heat, hence the ever increasing speed of computer servers comes with ever increasing power demands.

Supposedly: "it is possible to provide computing services with 95-99% less energy than today" .. that would be great, let's see what they have in mind.



Unfortunately after a lot of yahoogling I couldn't find much more solid anythings to those claims.