Greenpeace's "So Coal Network" YouTube video pokes fun at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The ongoing feud between Facebook and Greenpeace escalated this week with the release of a two-minute animated video criticizing Facebook’s use of coal to power its Prineville, Oregon data center.
Timed to coincide with the release of The Social Network, the Hollywood movie about the founding of Facebook set to release in October, the Greenpeace video bears the clumsily clever title “The So Coal Network,” pokes fun at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s career and ends with a plea for him to “unfriend” coal.
Earlier this month, Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo wrote an open letter to Zuckerberg, urging him to choose renewable energy over coal, though construction on the facility is well underway.
“It is simply untrue to say that we chose coal as a source of power. The suggestions of ‘choosing coal’ ignore the fact that there is no such thing as a coal-powered data center,” says Facebook’s director of policy communications, Barry Schmidt.
While Facebook isn’t choosing coal, it says it did choose the Oregon location for its temperate climate, which will enable the use of outside air to cool the facility, and lessen the need for chillers.
The data center also has a Power Usage Effectiveness measure of 1.15, and the company says it is seeking a LEED gold rating for the facility.
In a study released in March of this year (that one timed to coincide with the launch of Apple’s iPad), Greenpeace called out Facebook, among other technology companies, for building data centers in locations where the local power grid was powered by coal. The organization’s point seems to be that access to renewable power should be a bigger consideration for companies building data centers.
Arthur Cole of IT Business Edge wonders if data centers can ever be green enough.
“The short answer is no,” he writes, ”which is why most organizations are adopting a long-term view when it comes to energy efficiency. By building green considerations into both capital and operating budgets, the goal is to produce consistent improvement not just in energy efficiency but productivity in general.”
Data Center Journal’s Jeffrey Clark echoes Cole’s sentiment, saying, “data center managers must decide what their own goals for environmental friendliness are and in what time table these goals are achievable. With energy prices rising and public concern about the environment growing, companies have little choice but to take action in this regard, but what actions they take may well be limited by available resources.”
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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