While we're all recovering from the First Annual Luby Awards (where we enjoyed some green beer from the Brooklyn Brewery), here's a look at what's going green in the Web 2.0 world.
We all know that shopping online is a little greener than filling up the tank and driving to the mall and that paying bills online saves the cost of a stamp and the fuel needed to deliver a letter, but let's not forget that websites have their own ecological footprint. Web 2.0 is made possible by computers, routers, and servers that use electricity which can be generated in a variety of ways. This week and next, we'll be taking a look at the power behind the power of the Web 2.0 revolution.
Social networking juggernaut Facebook now boasts dozens of green applications offering everything from daily tips to environmentally conscious gifts, but the ones that really stand out from the crowd are the applications that actually make an impact. You can also offset your profile's carbon footprint with the Greenbook application. With money generated by advertising sponsors, the Greenbook team purchases offsets for a certain amount of CO2, and then distributes the offsets among the members who have added the application.
Worried about your blog's impact? The CO2Stats Project widget lets you calculate and offset the CO2 generated by your readers. Unlike the Greenbook application, which divides the offsets equally, this widget uses pageview metrics to calculate exactly how much energy is being used to display the page and then offsets it for free. The offsets are provided by Sustainable Travel International, although it's not quite clear who's paying since there are no advertisements on the website or in the widget.
Google, a voracious consumer of computing power, is turning to the sun to generate electricity, an obvious choice given the company's California location. Solar panels on the roof of the Googleplex (below) were completed in May and now comprise the largest corporate installation in the world. Google reports that they have reduced the amount of energy purchased from the "grid" of traditional outside sources by 30%, and estimates that the panels will pay for themselves in 7 years. [via Treehugger]
On November 27th, Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced plans to take this idea further with the "Renewable Cheaper Than Coal" initiative. RE<C, as it's known, will focus on developing alternative renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power in an effort to combat climate change and perhaps even take on the old guard of oil and coal companies. According to a press release issued by the company, RE<C aims "to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades." Google goes on to put this number into perspective by reminding us that one gigawatt is enough energy to power a city the size of San Francisco. Ambitious, certainly, but not impossible.
Stay tuned for next week, when we take a closer look at the problems of powering servers and data centers and some possible solutions for producing green electricity on a larger scale in the US.
-Annalisa
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