Data Centers: The Next Sustainability Red-Zone?

So today I walked past two of my workplace's "data centers." I put these in quotes because to be honest, two closet sized server farms pale in comparison to the new-aged data centers that are being ramped up (I'm talking zettabyte centers, SON!).

However, despite their relatively small sizes, I could definitely feel a temperature change when being near these rooms. This isn't terribly surprising because electronics throw off a ton of heat and require large amounts of climate control measures to keep them from overheating and shutting down.

Combining seeing these rooms with the fact that I had WAY too much coffee this morning led to me thinking about the issues that data centers are going to present us in the very near future. Recently there was a study that showed that Netflix is the new majority holder of internet bandwidth usage in the United States due to video streaming.

Data Center Scaling

I am certainly guilty of abusing the hell out of Netflix streaming as I have watched all the episodes of Dexter and Scrubs multiple times over, and I am soon going to be moving on to Sponge Bob Square Pants (yes, I am a nerd).

However, video steaming is only the tip of an iceberg that is only going to get bigger. Google is placing a huge bet with its Chromebooks that computers are going to be cloud-based in the future, and more and more services are being migrated to the virtual world. This is all wonderfully convenient, and I wouldn't change a thing about it - but it is going to ultimately lead to the necessary scaling of data centers.

The Problem

This means that there is going to be an increase in energy consumption, and to make things worse, this energy consumption is going to come at night, which traditionally is when energy rates have been cheaper.

Why at night? People spend the most time online at night streaming television shows, stalking their exes on facebook, etc. This will end up putting a higher demand on the baseline energy producers and increasing the need to scale up our energy production.

I'm not saying that this will happen all at once, but it isn't too farfetched to see how these dominos can fall.

The Solution

One way to address this is to obviously build more clean energy sources. If data is going to increase at night, raising a demand for nighttime electricity, then it is logical to build more wind turbines seeing that they produce most of their energy at night.

This is why I believe Google is investing so much into clean energy sources, whether it is the offshore windfarm network they are investing in, the new deal they struck with SolarCity, or the EV charging network they penned with Coulomb. They recognize that there is going to be a larger demand on their data centers, and the best way to green-up their operations is to offset their energy usage with clean electricity.

Ultimately, our need for increased data supplies and speeds will correlate directly with energy consumption, and it would be irresponsible to scale up these centers without cleaner means of energy production.

Obama's Renewed Focus On Clean Energy: Why Did We Stop Again?

A few days ago, President Obama rekindled his focus on domestically produced clean energy.

My reaction: Why did we stop hammering this point in the first place?

Clean energy provides solutions to our current political issues:

• Job Creation
• Market Volatility
• International Relations
• Sexiness

President Obama has wanted a large reduction by 2035 since he was first elected, but you wouldn't know it considering that there has been little to no actual legislation helping this become a reality. However, there is still hope that this issue will be revived again:

Obama will veer into domestic issues today, when he will announce new goals to reduce the nation's dependency on foreign oil while increasing homegrown energy supplies, including cleaner electricity. 

"Tomorrow's speech will mark a transition in our public communications," a senior White House official told reporters yesterday, referring to Obama's energy speech today and others. "You will see a concerted focus on energy." 

The White House's role in developing the electricity standard is reassuring to supporters, some of whom criticized the president's casual effort to pass climate legislation last summer. Key experts in the administration, including economist Nat Keohane, special assistant to the president, and Dan Utech, senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, are working on the standard, according to sources.

Once this becomes a political issue, I believe that it will be hard for any politician to deny clean energy's need for growth. The NY Times makes a great point by saying "Republicans might suffer on Election Day if they're perceived as old-fashioned politicians supporting oil and gas companies while opposing alternative energies."

One can hope that things play out this way.

China Is Winning The Clean Energy Race

You read that title correctly. China is winning, and no, I'm not defining winning the say way as Charlie Sheen.

Charlie Sheen... what a douche.

I won't bore you with the details (which you can find over at FastCompany.com), but here is the important part of the story:

China's national action plan is helping the country use more hydro, wind, and solar power. The country has goals of 150 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2020 (it looks like they're going to meet this goal five years early) and 20 gigawatts of solar by 2020. For comparision, the U.S. currently has .6 gigawatts of solar and 33 gigawatts of wind.

It all comes down to national policy, and right now China has made it clear to investors that they want alternative energy as a large part of their infrastructure's future. America on the other hand is only in 3rd place, but is constantly sending mixed signals on how much investment they really want making it difficult for investors to jump on board.

The good news is that the industry in general is trending upwards, I just wish that America would quit playing games with my heart*.

*Sorry, couldn't resist a Backstreet Boys reference.

Holy Renewable Energy Project, Batman: Norway and Jordan's Deal

I will be the first to admit that this blog focuses largely on the inner workings of America's alternative energy landscape, and a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that I live smack in the middle of the United States. However, this focus should not be mistaken for me being blind to the developments outside of America's scope.

Instead, it is more a nod that there is SO MUCH happening around the world in the realm of environmental energy that it would be impossible to cover it all in the three-post per week nature of this blog. Sure I could cover more if I didn't spend a ton of time researching my Sunday Comic segments, but lets face it, comics are awesome and I'm not going to cut a segment that creates 60% of this blogs traffic.

Putting all of that aside, there is an awesome development in the works between Norway and Jordan involving the Sahara Desert, water/food scarcity, and alternative energy:

inhabit.com reports:

The chosen test site is a 200,000 square meter plot in Aqaba, a coastal town in the far south of Jordan, close to the shore of the Red Sea. The agreement also secured an additional 2 million square meters for later expansion. The Sahara Forest Project combines Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Seawater Greenhouses to provide a huge amount of renewable energy and sustainable agricultural solutions, essentially turning one of the world’s most inhospitable environments into a flourishing oasis.

Seawater Greenhouses use solar power to convert salt water into fresh water, which is then used to grow fresh vegetables and algae (to absorb CO2). CSP provides the energy to power the whole operation. CSP uses thousands of mirrors to direct sunlight upon a water boiler, heating it to over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. The boiler produces steam, which moves a turbine to create energy.

If this project is completed, this will be a huge win for the alternative energy movement that can act as an example for the rest of the world. The following image is a conceptual representation of how this project could eventually look.

To read more about the agreement between Norway and Jordan, click here.

China Demonstrates The "Sputnik" Moment

Recently, Steven Chu gave a speech about how alternative energy is this generation's "Sputnik" moment. In short, he is referring to the fact that America is getting left behind in the race to be more advanced in our energy generation, and we can either sit back and watch or get up and fight back.

Echoing this point, Ernst & Young just released a report confirming that Asia is widening the gap in their use of alternative energies compared to the rest of the world.  For those keeping score, the rest of the world does in fact include the United States - a point that sometimes people tend to forget.

Because I don't want to do my own financial analysis of the alternative energy markets, I'm going to do what I do best and just copy and reference the work that others have done.  Take it from here Ernst & Young:

...Ernst & Young publishes a quarterly "country attractiveness" index for investors that ranks nations' renewable energy policies, renewable energy markets, and other factors...

...China's record spending on its wind industry this quarter represented nearly half of all funds invested in new wind projects around the world," the report states. "Figures released for the second quarter of 2010 showed that China invested around $10 billion in wind out of a global total of $20.5 billion...

 As I have stated before, money is the driving force behind any of these changes. Clearly China sees this, and other countries are indeed following their lead. It is only a matter of time before the policies in the US begin to open up more allowing for my investment and development, but it is quickly becoming clear that these things need to happen sooner than later for the US to stay competitive.

Nipping Away At Petroleum: Biodiesel

I'm feeling especially lazy today, especially as I am wrapping up my last semester of school and really turning up the heat on my job search (Editor's Note: A little known fact is that Colin Brownell will work for peanuts*).

However, in keeping with the daily nature of this blog, I wanted to touch briefly on biodiesel and the important role it is going to be playing in the near future.  As I have said before, there is no silver bullet in terms of one alternative energy acting as the sole replacement of petroleum.  However, there will be a collaborative effort with multiple sources (wind, solar, tidal, etc.) that will put a lot of pressure on the petroleum industry.

I will let the New York Times tell you why biodiesel is poised to be even more influential with the opening of the world's largest biodiesel plant being opened in Singapore just yesterday.  Copy & Paste time!

...What is being billed as the largest biodiesel plant in the world started production this week in Singapore. Operated by Neste Oil, the plant has the capacity to produce 800,000 metric tons of fuel per year. The fuel is made from vegetable oils or a combination of oils and waste animal fat sourced from the food industry. [Marketwatch]...

Aw, I don't feel bad.  NY Times stole this from Marketwatch.  Wait, there is more?

...The value of the green building market grew 50 percent from 2008 to 2010, to $71 billion, a new market report finds. The analysis, by the McGraw Hill Construction information service, predicts that the green construction market will grow to $135 billion by 2015. [Sustainable Business]

I think I am getting a hang of this blogging thing.  It seems like everyone just copies one another, and if the NY Times is just going to copy Sustainable Business and get paid for it, I am certainly not above copying them when time is short and I am looking for a job at the same time.

Obviously 800,000 metric tons of fuel is not going to be replacing our oil consumption any time soon.  I don't have the figures in front of me, but I think an American 7 year old burns through 800,000 metric tons of oil every 2 hours...that doesn't sound right.

The point is that while this one plant is not going to be replacing the petroleum industry, people are recognizing the potential of sources like this plant and are willing to invest money to begin the process of slowly replacing the use of oil with a combination of clean technologies and resources.

*Did that editor say peanuts? He meant money...definitely money.

How Large Of An Environmental Footprint Do Renewables Have?

This morning I was sitting on the train and got into a conversation with a completely random person about alternative energy which I know is shocking to hear because it is a rare occasion for me to want to talk about this stuff...wait.

This person was asking me that if we are sacrificing so much land and resources to construct a wind turbine or solar energy field, are we really making a difference or if we are just trading one evil for another.

I can understand where this person was coming from, but I believe that this is a less complicated issue than they were making it out to be.  This is mainly because even though we are dedicating land and certain natural resources to the construction of an alternative energy infrastructure, these are mainly a one time "cost."  When it comes to coal or other non-renewable energy sources, these are ongoing "costs" to the environment through a constant emission of pollution.

The best analogy I can come up with is when you are taking off a bandaid:

• Investing resources towards clean energy is kind of like ripping off a bandaid quickly.  It may 'hurt' in the short run, but in the long run you will feel a lot better.
• Continuing with our current system of energy production is kind of like keeping a dirty bandaid on forever and you develop sepsis.  Yay!!!

In all seriousness, clean energy is clearly the way to go, and when you compare clean energy's costs vs. benefits against coal's costs vs. benefits, it is a no-brainer.