Surprise, Surprise: Google Also a Big Fan of Cheap Electricity
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 02.16.08
Image courtesy of Adrian Libotean via flickr
Google's recent decision to venture into renewable energy - while met with some skepticism by the press and its shareholders - was largely embraced by environmentalist groups and eco-oriented publications (including this one). Indeed, the move to support the creation of a gigawatt of renewable energy seemed to reinforce Google's image as that of a benevolent, forward-thinking giant - lending credence to its "Don't be evil" mantra. But is there more than meets the eye to the recent announcement?
Ginger Strand, an author and contributor to Harper's Magazine, certainly seems to think so. In a fascinating exposé, Strand confirms some longstanding doubts about Google's devotion to clean energy and the operation of its energy-intensive server farms.
Image courtesy of Harper's
The blueprints (seen above) of its data center at The Dalles, Oregon, demonstrate, in Strand's mind, that the "Web" is as much an "energy glutton" as "heavy industry" - a realization that doesn't sit well with Google's new dedication to clean energy:
"Velcroed together, stacked in racks, and lined up in back-to-back rows, the servers require a half-watt in cooling for every watt they use in processing, and Google leads the field in squeezing more servers into less space. Based on a projected industry standard of 500 watts per square foot in 2011, the Dalles plant can be expected to demand about 103 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 82,000 homes, or a city
the size of Tacoma, Washington."
That's not to say, of course, that Google is alone in pursuing the cheapest source of electricity for its ever-growing data centers: Its rivals, including Microsoft and Yahoo (who've now contracted for a combined 90 MW), have been quick to follow its lead, building new centers on the Columbia River at an accelerating pace. In a recent report (which excluded Google), the EPA estimated that, by 2011, data center power use in the U.S. would double.
Some more disquieting facts: According to Strand, Google and its rivals have started heading abroad to seek ever cheaper (and, more likely than not, dirtier) sources of energy; Google is currently negotiating for a site in Lithuania that would allow it to tap into a power grid that is a measly 0.5% hydroelectric - and close to 78% nuclear.
While we certainly commend Google and its rivals' efforts to support research into clean, renewable energy sources, we feel that it's also only fair that they be more transparent about their operations' "dirty" side (a wishful thought). But don't just take our word for it: go read the whole piece here.
Via ::Harper's: Keyword: Evil (magazine)
See also: ::How Green is Google?, ::How's The Google Plug-In Hybrid Fleet Doing?
The future is decentralised energy and if you can make your own do it.Moving closer to the source and cutting line loss is great also.Big corps. have very little regard for local communities and workers and will sell out and go overseas or wherever the labor and power are the cheapest,this has happened time and time again.And with lax environmental and labor laws they can do as they please.We need localy produced energy, products and food!We should avoid at all costs shipping or jobs out of here.As the middle class shrinks the corps. have even more power over the government.Some things can never be green no matter how they are sold!
Well better that they should be powered by nuclear than coal! Or course we want all the servers in the world operating off renewables, but James Lovelock knows what he is talking about when he states that we need to move away from fossil fuels NOW. Of course fission is not the long-term solution, (although fusion may be...) and we must work full-speed on renewable sources too. But the truth is that we are not going to produce enough power quickly enough using renewables to satisfy the world's hunger for electricity. Nuclear is the only stop-gap that we have. It works very well here in France. 'Though I still don't like it!
While Google and other information technology companies may be consuming enormous amounts of energy, these companies provide more benefit to the environmental movement than any other industry out there. Face it: all of the money being invested in the research of high tech clean energy sources is coming from people who succeeded in the IT field. And, were it not for the enormous networking potential allowed by the internet, the environmental movement would still be a chaotic mess of scattered groups across the world. The internet has allowed the free flow of scientific knowledge about the state of our planet to reach anyone. It has also facilitated the spread and development of ideas on how to lead green lives.
The environmental movement should be careful not to bite the hand that sustains it. Any decentralized and green energy future will depend on a global network of people exchanging ideas and information.
Credit where due. This is hydroelectric power mainly.
About that corporate 767.
I hope the public at large will benefit from their experiments with their Priuses (Prii ?) and renewable power generation.
vsk
This server farm should be run more efficiently, but also we should consider how much Google's business activites contribute to energy savings. Google enables far more efficient use of existing infrastructure, physical and informational, cutting down on redundancy and waste. Google enables distance research, education, working at your job, &c. By allowing you to find just the product you need, it cuts down on shopping trips. By allowing you to find the exact destination you want, it eliminates excess travel. Of course, these are "external" benefits that aren't accounted for, but the more virtual infrastructure we have, the less expensive REAL infrastructure we need to build.
Note - I'm not a Google employee or stockholder or anything.
Some forms of industry are always going to be power-intensive. Does that mean we shouldn't do them at all? That we shouldn't look at ways to reduce their impact?
Further, have you considered just how many companies and people a typical data center supports?
I have a friend who owns an internet business and who works from his desk at home. His "company" resides in about four or five servers sitting in a rack at a local data center.
No big office. No B&M storefront. No driving and/or commuting to and from work. I don't know about you, but that seems VERY efficient and environmentally friendly to me.
Some forms of industry are always going to be power-intensive. Does that mean we shouldn't do them at all? That we shouldn't look at ways to reduce their impact?
Further, have you considered just how many companies and people a typical data center supports?
I have a friend who owns an internet business and who works from his desk at home. His "company" resides in about four or five servers sitting in a rack at a local data center.
No big office. No B&M storefront. No driving and/or commuting to and from work. I don't know about you, but that seems VERY efficient and environmentally friendly to me.
Although this is a power intensive industry, think about how much fossil fuels are saved by the internet.
I do almost all of my gift shopping from my computer (yes, I buy Christmas and birthday presents). I don't have to drive to three store looking for what I want, go home and package it and then drive to the post office to mail it. I go on the computer, find what I want and have it shipped right to them. (all my family lives in a different country)
If I want to send something to someone I have to ship it across the world which, depending on the materials may be its second world wide trip. Instead I can buy some thing that is already in the USA and have it delivered within a much closer range.
Dumb. The poster should be ashamed. This type of thinking discredits the environmental movement and paints us as being wackos.
Google consumes power but its operation also promotes resource efficiency. Would you prefer google turn off its servers and we go back to printing and mailing all of our information?
Guess what?! When we use the internet we consume energy. Web sites are powered by servers that consume energy. But only an asshole would suggest the Internet is bad for the environment because servers require power.
Digital information is a hell of a lot better for us than hardcopy information. If you want to rebel against server farms stop using email and go back to mailing all of your correspondence. You'll really be helping the environment then!
It seems to me that rather tan beating Google over the head, we should be engaging them to make more efficeint use of energy and encourage them to d things better.
On instant idea that comes to mind would be to either use geothermal heat pumps to cool their data centres by pumping the excess heat into the ground, OR
Pumping the surplus heat using heat pumps, into binary power generators to create electricity, or to heat water either in their buildings or somewhere nearby, or possibly even to co-locate with industries which require heat (usually food prducing industries etc).
I see lots of oportunities here. ... I wonder how best to pitch them to Google and other companies with huge server banks?
Google's actually doing a good thing by locating near the source of electricity production: power is cheaper there because there's less transmission loss, and less expensive/resource-intensive transmission infrastructure needed, to get the power to their servers.
Wikipedia notes that average transmission and distribution losses in the US were 7.2% in 1980. The big copper and aluminum/steel lines that carry the power come from mines. Transmitting information over a few glass fibers is much more efficient, as long as the server farm is large enough to justify using a new location. We should celebrate the creation of large datacenters near major hydroelectric sources, provided the environmental impact of the new construction is taken into account.
Data centers use lots of energy - hardly a shocking revelation, for starters. Google's investment in renewable energy isn't just a silly public relations grab: if Google has a massive, *in-house* source of energy, that massive utilities bill they fork out every year is going to get much smaller, if not go away entirely. For Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, energy consumption is an issue of dependency, more than anything else. You think someone in Google isn't drawing parallels to the airline industry swooning from high gas prices?
And also, re: Google's current energy use. While Google is waiting for renewable energy tech to develop enough to meet their needs, what are they supposed to do in the meantime? Put their data centers on hold, because they suck too much power off the grid? Obviously not. They will do what makes business sense: find the cheapest sources of energy. Although I think Strand is really stretching the implication that Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo are going abroad solely for cheaper energy prices. In the real world, it's called "tapping into growing markets". I think Eastern Europe and China qualify as areas of growth.
More interesting in this article would have been a look at how much Google pays for all this energy. In other words, what are they going to potentially reap for this investment in 'green' energy?
Has anyone considered that moving a data center 6-10 time zones can be responsible for more energy cost savings than anything else? This is moving the hardware, not the employees or the customers who use the data center.
Also, does anyone reading this post actually know much about Lithuania? This small country (3.4m people) has a 2.9% unemployment rate and 10% annual GDP growth. They have great infrastructure and are very tech-savvy. Google might as well move their data center to Pittsburgh from where they're at now if they're at all motivated by cutting labor costs.
Funny how any post about computers gets the most comments....
Come on, computers don't feed, clothe or shelter us. From the start I've felt we should run the internet solely off renewables. It is an ADDITION to our power 'needs'.
I can't deny the radical transformations the internet has given us, but I think of lot of geeks assume their PCs run in magical limbo land, where the electricity is virtual and never-ending, like spam.
"Come on, computers don't feed, clothe or shelter us"
I beg to differ. Those of us who work in the computer/IT/Internet field depend on computers to feed, clothe, and shelter us. As well, do you realize what all depends on computers these days? Traffic control systems (air and ground - traffic lights and such), the stock market, banks, etc. all run on computers these days. Just to reduce everyone's internet usage to "needs" is still a HUGE chunk of power.. one that would require a rather sizeable investment to cover. I, for one, applaud Google for investing in greener power options.
"Has anyone considered that moving a data center 6-10 time zones can be responsible for more energy cost savings than anything else? This is moving the hardware, not the employees or the customers who use the data center."
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the article suggests they are adding a data center in Lithuania, not moving an existing one over there. Which makes a bit more sense, considering the "ever-growing" processing power and data storage requirements inherent in keeping the Web world-wide and serving the billions more people Earth will be struggling to support in the coming 50 to 100 years.