Last week, I wrote about the energy used to power green sites and applications and some things Web 2.0 denizens can do to reduce their impact. This week I want to take a step even further back and look at what's powering the sites themselves and the challenge of greening this step of the energy supply chain.
OK, maybe it's nice to think that when we flip the switch and type in the URL the page magically loads. But somewhere, a server in a data center is storing the information and sucking up electricity. In addition to running the servers, the data center must also keep them cool. As any Buddylube employee can tell you, an overheated server is no fun. This, of course, requires more energy. In fact, for every watt required to run a server, the average data center requires nearly the same amount of energy to keep it cool (New York Times). According to the EPA, energy consumption by data centers is expected to double between now and 2011. If we are to avoid the environmental and financial burden of building more and more data centers and plants to power them, energy efficiency is going to have to become a priority.
The first step is more efficient servers. Unlike consumer products like cars or water heaters, federal energy standards don't apply to servers and the Energy Star program doesn't evaluate their efficiency. Furthermore, they can't run in energy-saving mode like most home computers. Some companies have taken matters in to their own hands - According to William E. Weihl, director of energy strategy, Google builds its own servers with more efficient components.
For the rest of us without this option, another option is more efficient data centers. Hewlett-Packard, one of the companies offering "thermal mapping" to data centers, provides color-coded images that display the current temperatures of the room so that air can be directed appropriately.“If you don’t have a profound understanding of where the hot spots are, you just overchill everything,” says Brian Brouillette, a VP at Hewlett-Packard. “It’s like if in your house you kept the air-conditioning on full tilt because one room had poor air circulation.”
Of course, data centers will also require some amount of power, and luckily there are green options out there. Some purchase renewable energy from the grid, the way Buddylube purchases green energy from local windfarms. These include SustainableWebsites, GoGreenHosting, and ThinkHost, who also plant a tree for each new client. GreenestHost takes it a step further and generates power "off the grid" to run the servers behind the sites they host. 120 panels soak up the Southern California sun to power a date center approximately 90 miles northeast of San Diego. A backup generator powered by cleaner-burning propane is on hand in case of a outage in the main system. In addition to solar energy, the data center is cooled by an Energy Star compliant system that sucks in outside air when the temperature falls below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
This week and last, we've learned where the internet comes from and how green it is (or isn't). While individual Web 2.0 users might not be able to impact the efficiency of the servers on the market or data center cooling methods, more and more choices are available to green consumers, from green hosting for a an interactive website to offsetting a single Facebook profile.
- Annalisa
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