To cool data centers, let the breeze flow in

The Green Grid has studied one of those "duh" ideas and found it would actually work.

A big cost in running a data center is the energy, especially the electricity to run the air conditioners. Supposedly servers like being in fixed temperature settings and of course servers generate heat which could damage the machines and it's required to evacuate the heat to keep the machines from melting down.

The idea? Use outside air to provide some of the cooling. For example if it's cold outside, open the window and let some of that cool air inside. So long as the outside air is less hot than the servers, that cooler air will help to cool the servers. Of course the cooler the outside air the more effect from using outside air to cool the servers.

Duh... This is simple physics people.

They've released on online tool for evaluating the potential savings in each area of the country.



Source: C|NET

Why choose eco-friendly web hosting?

By using eco friendly website hosting services you will be helping to support renewable energy sources. It is important to show that renewable energy sources can be used if they are developed on a larger scale. If you support wind farms or other forms of renewable energy sources, rather than using a non-renewable source of energy, then you won’t be helping to spread the growth of other methods of energy production. It is these other sources of energy production that are leading to environmental and health issues throughout the world.

By using eco friendly website hosting services you help foster the green sustainable world vision that led you to go into business as a green business. And you support the existence of large scale renewable energy sources.

There are two important factors that go into choosing eco friendly hosting: reliability and credibility. Does the green web hosting provider have a reliable source of energy? And are they credibly acting to be green, or are they engaging in green washing?

New Approaches to Greening the Data Centre

There's no shortage of talk on Green IT these days. The 'Green IT World' at the recent CeBIT 2009 show at Hannover in Germany filled almost an entire hall and featured big names like IBM, Fujitsu Siemens, Nokia, and Toshiba. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger made an appearance to promote Californian companies selling Green IT products and services. In recent weeks at least 3 new books have been published on Green IT, one of which catalogues John Lewis' approach to Green IT.

... read more ...

Data Centers Are Becoming Big Polluters, Study Finds

The world’s data centers are projected to surpass the airline industry as a greenhouse gas polluter by 2020, according to a new study by McKinsey & Co.

Over that time, the carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the electricity consumed by fast-expanding data centers will rise fourfold, the study estimates. The greenhouse gas impact of data centers is “not yet counted and likely to be very significant,” said William Forrest, the lead McKinsey consultant on the report.

... read more ...

The world's first carbon free search engine

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 22, 2007 - It was announced today that Picsearch is launching a 4 step program to guarantee a carbon free multimedia search. The search industry is a growing power consumer that needs to take responsibility. This is the first time that a search service company is making a commitment to be 100 percent carbon free. Picsearch encourages all colleagues in the search industry to contribute similar efforts.

... read more...

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.

BounceWeb - new green web host

BounceWeb appears to be a competent hosting provider, who has a comprehensive shared hosting plan that offers a lot of good features.

They have recently declared themselves "100% green" and are purchasing renewable energy credits through 3Degrees.