Green ICT is a topic I am passionate about. In my experience, when it comes to climate change, everyone is talking about solutions that will take years to have a real impact. But just by changing our thinking, by embracing virtual technologies over physical ones, and by moving our data to efficient datacenters in the right locations, we can mitigate a serious source of greenhouse gas emissions, and do so right now. We can make ICT more sustainable, more green, both inside and outside the datacenter. I see a real solution, and I look forward to working with industry colleagues to help make this change. As I share ideas in this blog, I invite you to offer suggestions for how we can get people to act on this message.
Green ICT
Information Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the fastest growing sources of CO2 emissions today. According to the International Science Grid, ICT is “the fifth largest consumer of power in the world, currently contributes 3-4% of the world’s CO2 emissions—and is doubling every three to four years.” The ICT industry is a major polluter, and its carbon footprint is multiplying at an incredible rate. We need to take action as an industry.
Many conversations about green ICT revolve around the end user and what they can do. This is all solid advice. Conscious end-user choices — like turning off computers, TVs, wireless routers etc when they are not in use – will make a difference.
However, datacenters (and corporate IT infrastructure) are routinely recognized as major contributors to ICT’s carbon footprint. By changing where we locate datacenters, and by making smart design choices, we can reduce our carbon footprint by up to 50 times (when compared to the footprint of traditional datacenters).
Datacenter Location and Design
Datacenters require a lot of power to operate. In North America 50% or more of this power comes from coal fired generating plants, which are one of the largest sources of CO2 emissions. Simply locating datacenters near low-carbon power sources (biomass, hydroelectric, geothermal) substantially reduces the carbon footprint of these datacenters.
Locating datacenters in cooler climates can also reduce their CO2 emissions, because much of the power used in datacenters is used to cool the servers and other equipment. New technology takes advantage of cool outside temperatures to regulate the temperature inside datacenters. In addition, design choices like cold aisle containment and modular construction can seriously reduce the power the datacenter uses. Finally, technologies like virtualization, unified fabric network, and cloud computing improve IT efficiency inside the datacenter.
In future blog entries, I plan to explore these approaches to reducing CO2 emissions. I will also discuss the economic incentives that support a green and sustainable ICT, and I will consider the opportunities and challenges that come with pursuing this goal. I will also look at the different ways we can measure and monitor our carbon footprint, the different green IT standards and so on. There is, obviously, a lot to talk about and a lot that we can do!
About Brian Fry
Brian is a driving force behind the development of Canada's first truly "green" datacenter, RackForce's GigaCenter in Kelowna, BC. This facility, engineered with input from IBM's Big Green team and powered by a hydro-electricity, delivers large-scale, technologically-advanced infrastructure for disaster recovery, colocation, and cloud/virtualization computing demands, and it sets the standard for green datacenters.
Brian launched his first technology company in Vancouver in 1985, and spent the Internet boom years in California. In 1997, Brian and his family left the traffic and pollution of California behind and returned to the safe, clean and green interior of BC. Brian became a partner in PowerLink Internet Services, which quickly grew into one of the largest ISPs in British Columbia, and was sold to Internet Direct in 1999. A short time later, Brian co-founded IPWorld Networks with Tim Dufour. This established a successful partnership, and in 2001, Brian and Tim co-founded RackForce. Brian and Tim have created a company that has significant business relationships with IBM and Microsoft, and that provides environmentally sustainable Dynamic Datacenter Services to a world-wide customer base. Brian is an outdoor enthusiast, and his passion for skiing and hiking reinforces his commitment to Green IT.
No related posts.
