Greenpeace report How Clean is Your Cloud? I saw mentioned in 3T magazine news is actually quite interesting reading. This year’s report provides a look at the energy choices some of the largest and fastest growing IT companies. The report analyzes the 14 IT companies and the electricity supply chain in more than 80 data center cases.
The report contains also lots of interesting background information on both IT and telecom energy consumption. I recommend checking it out. Here are some points picked from How Clean is Your Cloud? report:
Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo – these global brands and a host of other IT companies are rapidly and fundamentally transforming the way in which we work, communicate, watch movies or TV, listen to music, and share pictures through “the cloud.”
The growth and scale of investment in the cloud is truly mind-blowing, with estimates of a 50-fold increase in the amount of digital information by 2020 and nearly half a trillion in investment in the coming year, all to create and feed our desire for ubiquitous access to infinite information from our computers, phones and other mobile devices, instantly.
The engine that drives the cloud is the data center. Data centers are the factories of the 21st century information age, containing thousands of computers that store and manage our rapidly growing collection of data for consumption at a moment’s notice. Given the energy-intensive nature of maintaining the cloud, access to significant amounts of electricity is a key factor in decisions about where to build these data centers. Industry leaders estimate nearly $450bn US dollars is being spent annually on new data center space.
Since electricity plays a critical role in the cost structure of companies that use the cloud, there have been dramatic strides made in improving the energy efficiency design of the facilities and the thousands of computers that go inside. However, despite significant improvements in efficiency, the exponential growth in cloud computing far outstrips these energy savings.
How much energy is required to power the ever-expanding online world? What percentage of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is attributable to the IT sector? Answers to these questions are very difficult to obtain with any degree of precision, partially due to the sector’s explosive growth, a wide range of devices and energy sources, and rapidly changing technology and business models. The estimates of the IT sector’s carbon footprint performed to date have varied widely in their methodology and scope. One of the most recognized estimates of the IT sector’s footprint was conducted as part of the 2008 SMART 2020 study, which established that the sector is responsible for 2% of global GHG emissions.
The combined electricity demand of the internet/cloud (data centers and telecommunications network) globally in 2007 was approximately 623bn kWh (if the cloud were a country, it would have the fifth largest electricity demand in the world). Based on current projections, the demand for electricity will more than triple to 1,973bn kWh (an amount greater than combined total demand of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil).
The report indicates that, due to the economic downturn and continued energy efficiency and performance improvements, global energy demand from data centers from 2005-2010 increased by 56%. Estimates of data center electricity demand come in at 31GW globally, with an increase of 19% in 2012 alone. At the same time global electricity consumption is otherwise essentially flat due to the global recession is still a staggering rate of growth.
Given the scale of predicted growth, the source of electricity must be factored into a meaningful definition of “green IT”. Energy efficiency alone will, at best, slow the growth of the sector’s footprint. The replacement of dirty sources of electricity with clean renewable sources is still the crucial missing link in the sector’s sustainability efforts according to the report.
The global telecoms sector is also growing rapidly. Rapid growth in use of smart phones and broadband mobile connections mean mobile data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size of the entire internet in 2000. It is estimated that global mobile data traffic grew 133% in 2011, with 597 petabytes of data sent by mobiles every month. In 2011, it is estimated that 6 billion people or 86.7% of the entire global population have mobile telephone subscriptions. By the end of 2012, the number of mobile connected devices is expected to exceed the global population. Electronic devices and the rapidly growing cloud that supports our demand for greater online access are clearly a significant force in driving global energy demand.
What about telecoms in the developing and newly industrialized countries? The report has some details from India (by the way it is expected that India will pass China to become the world’s largest mobile market in terms of subscriptions in 2012). Much of the growth in the Indian telecom sector is from India’s rural and semi-urban areas. By 2012, India is likely to have 200 million rural telecom connections at a penetration rate of 25%. Out of the existing 400,000 mobile towers, over 70% exist in rural and semi-urban areas where either grid-connected electricity is not available or the electricity supply is irregular. As a result, mobile towers and, increasingly, grid-connected towers in these areas rely on diesel generators to power their network operations. The consumption of diesel by the telecoms sector currently stands at a staggering 3bn liters annually, second only to the railways in India.
What is the case on other developing and newly industrialized countries? I don’t actually know.
NOTE: Please note that that many figures given on the report are just estimates based on quite little actual data, so they might be somewhat off the actual figures. Given the source of the report I would quess that if the figures are off, they are most probably off to direction so that the environmental effect looks bigger than it actually is.
608 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
The server centers are a waste of energy – machines for waste heat warms up even if greenhouse
The electricity used by servers becomes a computer calculation of a by-product heat. As the world is increasingly used in computers and internet services , server halls and in particular their cooling energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important
- Server halls giant flagships are actually more energy efficient than small computers include facilities , Pervilä encapsulates the University Bulletin. The majority of server rooms is very small and considerably poorer than the energy efficiency of these giants.
Pervilä study, large data centers such as Google in Hamina , Yahoo and Facebook Lockport Prinevillessä resemble each other : they try to minimize the extra energy consumption , using the surrounding natural heat sources such as bodies of water.
Retrofitting to reduce emissions by a huge amount of.
Continuity of service , it is important not to cause any action to improve energy efficiency or downtime for users with additional delays. The thesis presents a set of server cooling of data centers that focus on retrofit technologies.
These techniques include the production of low cost , without compensation , the so-called free cooling and heat recovery of exhaust air in the greenhouse at the experimental new location.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/uutisia/palvelinkeskukset+haaskaavat+energiaa+ndash+koneiden+hukkalammolla+lampiaa+vaikka+kasvihuone/a954048
Tomi Engdahl says:
ASHRAE seeking comments on updated data center energy standard
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/12/ashrae-updates-dc-energy-standard.html
As high plug loads and rapidly advancing IT technology make data center applications significantly different from their commercial building counterparts, a purposed standard from ASHRAE that specifically addresses the unique energy requirements of data centers is open for advisory public review.
Standard 90.4P, Energy Standard for Data Centers and Telecommunications Buildings, is reportedly being developed in response to requests to recognize the energy performance profiles unique to data centers; previously, data centers were included in in ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings. ASHRAE says that the new Standard 90.4P will feature a performance based approach that is more flexible and accommodating of innovative changes which can rapidly occur in data center design, construction and operations, according to association chair Ron Jarnagin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global warming ‘pause’ may last for 20 more years and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover
Study says warmer temperatures are largely due to natural 300-year cycles
Actual increase in last 17 years lower than almost every prediction
Scientists likened continuing pause to a Mexican wave in a stadium
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485772/Global-warming-pause-20-years-Arctic-sea-ice-started-recover.html#ixzz2nqYSI5HD
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global warming ‘pause’ may last 20 more years – Arctic sea ice already recovering
http://iceagenow.info/2013/11/global-warming-pause-20-years-arctic-sea-ice-recovering/
Stunning challenge to global warming orthodoxy – Warmer temperatures largely due to natural 300-year cycles, says new study.
The 17-year pause in global warming is likely to last into the 2030s and Arctic sea ice has already started to recover, according to new research.
A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Dynamics – by Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr Marcia Wyatt – amounts to a stunning challenge to climate science orthodoxy.
The paper suggests that the IPCC has underestimated the role of natural cycles and exaggerated the impact of greenhouse gases.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yeah, About That Global Warming “Pause” …
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/16/global_warming_new_study_shows_pause_doesn_t_exist.html
If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the ongoing noise about global warming, then you’ve heard of the so-called pause. This is the idea that the planet hasn’t actually been warming for the past 15 years or so.
However, this is baloney. First off, the plot used by people who would deny the Earth is warming up (and that humans are behind it) only shows the temperature of the air over land and ocean. But our atmosphere (pardon the weird metaphor) doesn’t exist in a vacuum; the extra heat retained by our planet is also warming the oceans. In fact, most of that heat is going into deep ocean waters.
A new analysis of temperature data shows global surface air temperatures are rising as usual (thick red line) and have not “paused” (thin red line).
Tomi Engdahl says:
The “pause” in global warming comes from bad date
http://io9.com/new-study-shows-the-pause-in-global-warming-comes-fro-1484259046
Global temperatures haven’t gone up in the last few years. Does that mean climate change isn’t happening? No. In this video, York University chemist Kevin Cowtan explains very carefully how he and his colleague discovered that the “pause” is a fiction, the result of bad data and bad statistical reasoning.
Climate change deniers have jumped on a batch of incomplete, poorly-analyzed climate data which suggests the planet’s warming trend is “on pause.” If there’s a pause, they argue, perhaps predictions of climate change are wrong. Unfortunately for the future of our planet, the pause only exists if you ignore a lot of temperature data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Met Office proof that global warming is still ‘on pause’ as climate summit confirms global temperature has stopped rising
The Mail on Sunday first revealed global temperature pause a year ago
IPCC report confirms no significant rise in global temperature since 1997
IPCC accused of sinking to ‘hilarious level of incoherence’
But the IPCC insists 2016-2035 will be 0.3-0.7C hotter than 1986-2005
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436710/Met-office-proof-global-warming-pause-climate-summit-confirms-global-temperature-stopped-rising.html#ixzz2nqZcAyDw
Tomi says:
Mobile phone base stations now consume as much energy as the entire global air transport. When the network is growing all the time, to keep operators and equipment manufacturers to find ways to improve energy efficiency.
It can be done, for example, more energy efficient network processors
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=793:uusi-artikkeli-kannykkaverkon-sahkonkulutus-kuriin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Algorithms Reduce the Carbon Cost of Cloud Computing
Software redistributes tasks among networked data centers to optimize energy efficiency
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/new-algorithms-reduce-the-carbon-cost-of-cloud-computing
The computing cloud may feel intangible to users, but it has a definite physical form and a corresponding carbon footprint. Facebook’s data centers, for example, were responsible for the emission of 298 000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012, the equivalent of roughly 55 000 cars on the road. Computer scientists at Trinity College Dublin and IBM Research Dublin have shown that there are ways to reduce emissions from cloud computing, although their plan would likely cause some speed reductions and cost increases. By developing a group of algorithms, collectively called Stratus, the team was able to model a worldwide network of connected data centers and predict how best to use them to keep carbon emissions low while still getting the needed computing done and data delivered.
“The overall goal of the work was to see load coming from different parts of the globe [and] spread it out to different data centers to achieve objectives like minimizing carbon emissions or having the lowest electricity costs,” says Donal O’Mahony, a computer science professor at Trinity.
For the simulation, the scientists modeled a scenario inspired by Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) data center setup that incorporated three key variables—carbon emissions, cost of electricity, and the time needed for computation and data transfer on a network.
The researchers then used the Stratus algorithms to optimize the workings of the network for any of the three variables. With the algorithms they were able to reduce the EC2 cloud’s emissions by 21 percent over a common commercial scheme for balancing computing loads.
even when Stratus was tuned to reduce carbon, it shaved 38 milliseconds off the average time taken to request and receive a response from the data centers.
The researchers stress that the results have more value in representing trends than in predicting real-world numbers for quantities like carbon savings.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Antarctic ice shelf melt ‘lowest EVER recorded, global warming is NOT eroding it’
Human CO2 just not a big deal at Pine Island Glacier
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/03/antarctic_ice_shelf_melt_lowest_ever_recorded_just_not_much_affected_by_global_warming/
Scientists at the British Antarctic Survey say that the melting of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf in Antarctica has suddenly slowed right down in the last few years, confirming earlier research which suggested that the shelf’s melt does not result from human-driven global warming.
The Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica and its associated sea ice shelf is closely watched: this is because unlike most of the sea ice around the austral continent, its melt rate has seemed to be accelerating quickly since scientists first began seriously studying it in the 1990s.
Many researchers had suggested that this was due to human-driven global warming, which appeared to be taking place rapidly at that time (though it has since gone on hold for 15 years or so, a circumstance which science is still assimilating).
“We found ocean melting of the glacier was the lowest ever recorded, and less than half of that observed in 2010.”
The usual suspects will no doubt choose to play the man rather than the ball here and complain that this article is an example of cherry-picking by an evil climate “denier”, probably funded by the Koch brothers and unqualified to write on climate matters
Britney says:
Veery good article! We are linking to this particularly great post on
our site. Keep up the good writing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Electronics president and CEO BK Yoon outlined four major changes through which our world is now hurtling, and which he believes technology should address.
After touching on accelerating connectivity, rapidly increasing urbanization, and the aging of world populations, Yoon introduced his fourth horseman: climate disruption. “New risks are emerging,” he said. “I was shocked. We all were shocked when we saw the reports of hurricanes devastating entire countries. Extreme weather events have increased by 200 per cent since 1990.”
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/07/samsung_introduces_professional_tablet_line/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solar energy area according to Solarbuzz began the next year will be a record year for solar power. New production capacity will be built by as much as 49 gigawatts extent.
Photovoltaic built in the last year, some 36 GW, so the growth is good. Of course, solar power’s share of world total energy production is still less than one per cent.
The construction of solar power has grown steadily in recent years
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=813:49-gigawattia-aurinkosahkoa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins: Antarctic glacier in irreversible decline, will raise sea levels by 1cm
Pine Island Glacier signal of watery things to come
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/15/scientists_warn_of_sea_level_rise_after_antarctic_glacier_in_irreversible_decline/
A massive Antarctic glacier is in irreversible decline and will add up to a centimeter to world sea levels in the next 20 years, claim polar scientists.
“The result is a striking vision of the near future. All the models suggest that this recession will not stop, cannot be reversed and that more ice will be transferred into the ocean,”
The PIG is just part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which the scientists warn is also thinning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alleging ‘Malpractice’ With Climate Skeptic Papers, Publisher Kills Journal
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/01/alleging-malpractice-climate-skeptic-papers-publisher-kills-journal
A European publisher today terminated a journal edited by climate change skeptics. The journal, Pattern Recognition in Physics, was started less than a year ago. The editors-in-chief were Nils-Axel Mörner, a retired geophysicist from Stockholm University, and Sid-Ali Ouadfeul, a geophysicist at the Algerian Petroleum Institute.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spain broke the record for green energy – such no country has ever achieved
Renewable energy sources brought 42.4 per cent of Spain’s energy last year.
Spain has become the first country where wind energy has become the largest source of energy.
El Pais newspaper says that wind power brought last year, 20.9 per cent of the energy in Spain, slightly more than the 20.8 per cent share of nuclear power.
This was the first time that the wind has risen to any country’s largest source of energy,
Source: Talouselämä
http://www.talouselama.fi/uutiset/espanja+rikkoi+energiaennatyksen++tallaista+mikaan+maa+ei+ole+koskaan+saavuttanut/a2226654
Tomi Engdahl says:
Made in China: Up to a quarter of California smog
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24909-made-in-china-up-to-a-quarter-of-california-smog.html#.UuD9wrSxVaQ
What goes around comes around – quite literally in the case of smog. The US has outsourced many of its production lines to China and, in return, global winds are exporting the Chinese factories’ pollution right back to the US.
Decades ago, the US began outsourcing its industrial production, resulting in the ubiquitous “made in China” label. US factories shut down and Chinese ones opened up in droves. It looked like a clever scheme to shift noxious pollution to the opposite side of the planet, but it is backfiring.
The team focused on particulate emissions – tiny specks of pollutants like sulphates and soot that make up smog and are harmful to human health. Sulphate causes respiratory disease and is particularly problematic for the young, the elderly and people with asthma. areas a result acceptable levels of sulphate in the air are strictly controlled in many countries including the US.
The team found that between 17 and 36 per cent of smog produced in China in 2006 came from factories making goods for export. One-fifth of those goods are destined for the US.
An added twist came when the team combined their emissions data with atmospheric models that predict how winds shuttle particles around. These winds push Chinese smog over the Pacific and dump it on the western US, from Seattle to southern California.
The modelling revealed that on any given day in 2006, goods made in China for the US market accounted for up to a quarter of the sulphate smog over the western US.
It is well known that much of the carbon dioxide produced by Chinese factories can be attributed to US goods, implying that the US is partially responsible for China’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. But no one had yet looked at smog.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why IBM’s server sell-off is a lightbulb moment
How would you power a data centre 10 years from now?
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/02/03/what_lenovo_ibm_buy_really_means/
Ever-growing data centres… it CAN’T last forever
Social media, big data and cloud services are fuelling an insatiable, power-hungry demand for new data centres. There may be enough energy to meet current requirements but what will happen in five or 10 years’ time? At the current rate of increasing demands and projections, there won’t be enough power to switch on our data centres in the next decade.
I suspect that IBM not only saw that but also didn’t want to keep hold of a business doomed to suffer massive change because of these escalating power needs. Low-end server vendors will have to get used selling fewer boxes or find other ways to sustain their business
HP is also very much aware of this
Tomi Engdahl says:
India to build world’s largest solar plant
Facility will triple the country’s solar capacity and dwarf existing photovoltaic arrays.
http://www.nature.com/news/india-to-build-world-s-largest-solar-plant-1.14647
India has pledged to build the world’s most powerful solar plant. With a nominal capacity of 4,000 megawatts
will be more than ten times larger than any other solar project built so far, and it will spread over 77 square kilometres of land
estimated life of 25 years
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free Cooling: the Server Side of the Story
by Johan De Gelas on February 11, 2014 7:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7723/free-cooling-the-server-side-of-the-story
Data centers are the massive engines under the hood of the mobile internet economy. And it is no secret that they demand a lot of energy: with energy capacities ranging from 10MW to 100MW,
The main energy gobblers are the CRACs, Computer Room Air Conditioners or the alternative, the CRAHs, the Computer Room Air Handlers.
There are quite a few data centers that have embraced “free cooling” totally, i.e. using the cold air outside.
As mechanical cooling is typically good for 40-50% of the traditional data center’s energy consumption, it is clear that enormous energy savings can be possible with “free cooling”.
The “single-tenant” data centers of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo that use “free cooling” to its full potential are able to achieve an astonishing PUE of 1.15-1.2.
the average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating for data centers is 1.8.
Too much humidity and your equipment is threatened by condensation. Conversely, if the data center air is too dry, electrostatic discharge can wreak havoc.
Still, the humidity of the outside air is not a problem for free cooling as many data centers can be outfitted with a water-side economizer.
Humidity should be approximately between 20 and 80%. pecially equipped servers (Class A4) can go as high as 45°C with humidity being between 10 and 90%.
Most of the “free cooling” systems are “assisting cooling systems”.
All you need is … a mild climate
About 75% of North-America can use free cooling if the maximum inlet temperature is raised to 35°C (95 °F). In Europe, the situation is even better:
Being able to use free cooling comes with both OPEX and CAPEX savings. In traditional data centers, this allows administrators to raise the room temperature and decrease the amount of energy the cooling requires.
The most interesting conclusion is that raising the inlet temperature from 20 to 35°C results in almost no increase in power consumption (3-5%) on the server side, while the savings on cooling and ventilation can be substantial, around 40% or more.
The PUE optimized servers can sustain up to 40°C inlet temperature without a tangible increase in power consumption.
An investment in air-side or water-side economizers could result in very large OPEX savings.
Modern data centers should avoid servers that cannot cope with higher inlet temperature at all cost as the cost savings of free cooling range from significant to enormous.
“67% estimated power savings using the (air) economizer 91% of the time—an estimated annual savings of approximately USD 2.87 million in a 10MW data center”
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Wind power causes climate change’ shown to be so much hot air
The signal is less than the noise
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/12/relax_wind_power_isnt_a_new_source_of_climate_change/
The localised weather effects of wind-farms are just that – localised weather effects rather than climate-change engines in their own right, according to new research from Europe.
When studies emerged in 2012 suggesting local wind-farm-warming effects, they raised speculation that the effects might not be purely local.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Germany’s Renewable Plan Faces Popular Resistance
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/14/02/13/2144248/germanys-renewable-plan-faces-popular-resistance
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Vehicle-to-Grid Technology Gains Momentum
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321023&
Electric car batteries can do more than power electric cars. They can send current to homes and buildings, or send it back to the grid when demand is high. Some experts even believe EV batteries might one day boost the prominence of renewables by storing the energy from wind and solar farms.
The idea of so-called “vehicle-to-grid” schemes inevitably stirs debate among engineers.
electric utilities, auto manufacturers, and university researchers are all studying the concept
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google makes huge investment in clean energy
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101417698
In its latest quarter, Google spent $2.25 billion on data center and infrastructure spending, a huge area of costs for the company. That’s one of the reasons the company is aggressively moving to solar, wind and other alternative energies to power its data centers and banks of servers scattered around the world.
If you ask top executives at Google, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft, they will all tell you they are gigantic consumers of energy. And it’s for this reason that top companies in Silicon Valley are in a race to be the leader of clean and renewable energies.
Google has made 15 wind and solar investments totaling more than $1 billion.
“We’ve invested over a billion dollars in 15 projects that have the capacity to produce two gigawatts of power around the world, mostly in the U.S., but that’s the equivalent of Hoover’s Dam worth of power generation,”
On Thursday, one of Google’s solar investments kicked into operation. Google and several partners flipped the switch on the world’s largest solar thermal project in Ivanpah, near the California-Nevada line. The project uses 347,000 sun-facing mirrors to produce 392 megawatts of electricity. Ivanpah’s clear energy will power electricity for more than 140,000 California homes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Antarctic glacier ‘melted JUST as fast LONG before human carbon emissions’
Nothing new going on at Pine Island, insist British boffins
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/21/antarctic_glacier_melted_just_as_fast_long_before_human_carbon_emissions/
Top boffins from the British Antarctic Survey say that the Pine Island Glacier – famous as a possible major cause of global-warming-powered sea level rises – was melting just as fast thousands of years ago as it is melting today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Japanese company proposes to build solar power cells on the Moon to provide clean energy to Earth.
http://spaceindustrynews.com/japanese-company-proposes-to-build-solar-power-cells-on-the-moon-to-provide-clean-energy-to-earth/4187/
Harnessing the suns power is nothing new on Earth, but if a Japanese company has it’s way it will build a solar strip across the 11,000 mile Lunar equator that could supply our world with clean and unlimited solar energy for generations.
In order to do this they will beam microwave and laser energy to giant energy conversion facilities on Earth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smell of forest pine can limit climate change – researchers
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26340038
New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change.
Scientists say they’ve found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests.
These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form.
One of the biggest holes in scientific knowledge about climate change relates to the scale of the impact of atmospheric aerosols on temperatures.
These particles form clouds that block sunlight as well as reflecting rays back into space.
One of the most significant but least understood sources of aerosols are the sweet-smelling vapours found in pine forests in North America, northern Europe and Russia.
“In a warmer world, photosynthesis will become faster with rising CO2, which will lead to more vegetation and more emissions of these vapours,” said lead author, Dr Mikael Ehn, now based at the University of Helsinki.
“This should produce more cloud droplets and this should then have a cooling impact, it should be a damping effect.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Four out of five of the European Union citizens believe that combating climate change and energy use more efficient to give a boost to the economy and employment. Eurobarometer survey, a slight increase from the previous, in 2011 a survey. At the time, agree with 78 per cent of the respondents.
Recognizes the economic benefits of energy efficiency, especially in the EU countries, the economic and financial crisis hit the hardest.
The respondents, 80 percent are of the view that climate change by resisting the use of energy and more efficient to support the economy and employment. Totally agree in Spain were the most likely (52%), Sweden (50%), Malta (44%), Ireland and Cyprus (43%) and Greece (42%).
Finnish 21 per cent were in full agreement.
Nine out of ten Europeans think that climate change is a serious problem. The vast majority, or 69 per cent feel that it is very serious, and 21 per cent feel that quite a serious problem.
Source: Turun Sanomat
http://www.ts.fi/uutiset/ulkomaat/602612/Kysely+Ilmastonmuutosta+torjumalla+tyollisyydelle+vauhtia
montblanc-pens.us says:
Hello there! Do you know if they make any plugins to safeguard against hackers?
I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard
on. Any recommendations?
Www.Montblanc-pens.us says:
Why viewers still make use of to read news papers when in this technological world
the whole thing is available on net?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data Centre World: It’s hard work cooling off those hot racks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/04/data_centre_world_2014_show_report/
Certainly, cooling is an area that attracts some diverse approaches, some such as Excalibur Energy’s focus on updating and optimising existing systems, rather than simply swapping out old kit for new. In one project,
Iceotope relies on specially equipped cooling racks that are designed to accommodate existing equipment. Heat needn’t go to waste, but harnessing this high density computing byproduct does require some commitment and clarity of vision.
On this point, the European Commission funded CoolEmAll initiative looks to improving efficiency from the design level. Part of the project involves developing the Simulation, Visualisation and Decision Support (SVD) Toolkit which will enable data centre modelling to reveal how the physical positioning, cooling, applications and workloads can be configured to improve energy efficiency.
Needless to say, if you wander over to Keysource, you’ll find there’s an app for that. The Data Centre Daily is a freebie iOS and Android app to aid the calculation of energy costs in the data centre, together with a handy convertor to work out rack space availability for a given area.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Engineers Are Building a Power Station At the South Pole
Engineers are attempting to provide 24/7 power to an ambitious experiment at the bottom of the world. Here’s how…
https://medium.com/p/a6c28bf04f0d
But how to generate 24/7 power at the South Pole? Today, Dave Besson at the University of Kansas and a couple of pals describe their answer. These guys have designed, built and tested a power station that uses a mixture of solar and wind power with the aim of providing continuous renewable power all year round.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Billboard Advertises Engineering School, Manufactures Potable Water
http://hackaday.com/2014/03/13/billboard-advertises-engineering-school-manufactures-potable-water/
It’s a remarkable thing when ad agencies manage to help people in the course of advertising.
came away with the idea to install a billboard that converts Lima’s water-saturated coastal desert air into potable water
Never Thought A Billboard Could Be Used This Way!
http://www.reshareable.tv/never-thought-a-billboard-could-be-used-this-way.html?h=1
UTECH designed a billboard that can convert atmospheric humidity into drinking water through reverse osmosis in Lima, Peru where water shortage is one of the biggest problems. Peru only gets 2 inches of rainfall every year but has an extraordinarily high humidity
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU Project Aims To Switch Data Centres Over To Car Batteries
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/eu-greendatanet-project-data-centres-car-batteries-141648
The GreenDataNet project wants Europe’s data centres to use second-hand car batteries to make the electric grid run more smartly
A €2.9 million project aims to make Europe’s data centres greener by moving them onto renewable energy and trimming their power usage. It also includes a novel idea – power from second hand electric car batteries.
“Affordable and reliable batteries could have a second life in data centres and in the home, starting around 2020,” Nissan’s director for corporate planning, Redmer van der Meer told TechWeek at the launch of GreenDataNet.
Nissan has already set up a system using second-hand car batteries from its Leaf electric cars, at its Osaka plant in Japan, and offers a system called “Leaf 2 Home” in which a car battery installed at a Leaf owner’s home smooths the demand cycles of both car and house.
Renewable energy sources are intermittent and unreliable, while demand also fluctuates wildly. Moves to make data centres more efficient have actually made matters worse, as they now reduce their power demand when usage is low, increasing the fluctuation of loads.
“Renewable production gyrates wildly, and traditional generation is suffering,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Environmentalists Propose $50 Billion Buyout of Coal Industry – To Shut It Down
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/03/12/1655214/environmentalists-propose-50-billion-buyout-of-coal-industry—to-shut-it-down
“The pair have published an somewhat audacious proposal to spend $50 billion dollars to buy up and then shut down every single private and public coal company operating in the United States. The scientific benefits: eliminating acid rain, airborne emissions, etc”
Deal of the century: buy out the US coal industry for $50bn
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/us-coal-industry-buyout
What if Bloomberg, Branson and Grantham came together to buy out the coal industry, close and clean up the mines, retrain workers and accelerate the expansion of renewable energy?
invest $50bn once over the next decade, and generate $100-$500bn in benefits every year.
That’s the surprisingly low price to buy up and shut down all the private and public coal companies in the US, breaking the centuries-old grip
How would it work? The deal would phase out coal companies over 10 years, close and clean up the mines, write down the assets, retrain and re-employ some 87,000 workers, and create job opportunities and prosperity for coal-based communities.
This one-time transaction would generate multiple benefits. It would eliminate US’s largest single source of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide from coal plants.
A coal industry buyout could then become the inspiring foundation for a global financial strategy to get us off fossil fuels
Tomi Engdahl says:
WHEN THE RIVERS RUN BLACK
America’s largest industrial accident tore apart the town of Kingston, Tennessee. Five years later, has the industry learned anything?
https://medium.com/matter/ff09374db13b
The most toxic byproduct of coal-fired power isn’t carbon dioxide. It’s the residue that’s left over. When coal is burned in a plant, just like in a home, it produces two kinds of ash: fly ash, which rises, and bottom ash, which sinks to the floor of the furnace. Together, they comprise coal ash. In a power plant, all that ash has to be put somewhere.
It was mixed with water to stop it from blowing around and dumped into the retaining pond, which quickly swelled with the waste.
OAL REMAINS THE DOMINANT SOURCE of electrical power in America, responsible for just under 40 percent of the nation’s supply.
coal remains its backbone
Environmental Protection Agency to make its plants run cleaner and more efficiently. Usually, that means installing scrubber systems in the smokestacks, which clean the emissions of pollutants like mercury, toxic metals, and acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide.
The result is that the exhaust that emerges today is far cleaner than it was decades ago. But cleaning up the airborne emissions means that the solids remaining after the burn are far dirtier than before.
Tomi Engdahl says:
China deploys drones to spy on polluting industries
Drones to scout over skies of Beijing and other cities to check for smog sources and spot environmental breaches
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/19/china-drones-pollution-smog-beijing
what is a fatty liver says:
Howdy! I understand this is sort of off-topic however I had to ask.
Does operating a well-established website such as yours take
a massive amount work? I’m completely new to operating a blog but I do write in my journal daily.
I’d like to start a blog so I can share my own experience and thoughts
online. Please let me know if you have any kind of recommendations or tips for new aspiring bloggers.
Appreciate it!
Tomi Engdahl says:
I have put a massive amount work to get the web site to the state it is now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Could Earth’s infrared emissions be a new renewable energy source?
http://www.gizmag.com/earth-infrared-emissions-renewable-energy/31101/
Could it one day be possible to generate electricity from the loss of heat from Earth to outer space? A group of Harvard engineers believe so and have theorized something of a reverse photovoltaic cell to do just this. The key is using the flow of energy away from our planet to generate voltage, rather than using incoming energy as in existing solar technologies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic devices consume power even when not in use. Electronic devices in standby mode consume from 5 to 10 per cent of the total electricity consumption in the West.
IEC (62301/4.5) defines zero power consumption of the device, which power consumption is less than five milliwatts.
- One-milliwatt power in standby mode is more than enough to drive a digital watch, to observe the enviroment, receive wireless signals and to activate the infrared link, Ong says.
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1108:valmiustilan-tehonkulutus-nollaan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
WHO: Air Pollution ‘Killed 7 Million People’ In 2012
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/03/25/1958217/who-air-pollution-killed-7-million-people-in-2012
“The Organization says the bulk of the deaths occurred in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific Regions ”
“largely due to the use of coal, wood, and biomass stoves for cooking”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Little time left to turn down the world’s heat, U.N. says
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/30/world/un-climate-report/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Your forecast for the next century: Hotter, drier and hungrier, and the chance to turn down the thermostat is slipping away.
That’s the latest conclusion from the United Nations, which urged governments to address the “increasingly clear” threats posed by a warming climate before some options are closed off for good. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that taking steps to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for rising temperatures could buy more time to adjust to a warmer world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What if a person could modify the climate?
Mirrors in space, artificial trees, the clouds bleaching, ocean fertilization …
Because of the Earth’s carbon dioxide emissions are not halted or even braked, the researchers have already almost ten years to reflect the artificial alternatives to global warming mitigation. In the past, these studies met with a little disdain, but now they have changed the scientific circles as a serious research topic.
A variety of editing solutions have been invented a long list, but they all have a common problem – no one knows exactly what would happen if they would be used, and, above all, there is no assurance sufficient to yield greater benefits.
Source: Iltalehti
http://www.iltalehti.fi/uutiset/2014033118136929_uu.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
SAP invests in ecology: the data centers use 100 per cent renewable electricity
The company’s data centers and offices have received this year from the beginning of its energy 100 per cent renewable electricity according to Annual Report and Sustainability Report 2013 SAP Integrated Report.
According to the report the company’s average energy efficiency remained unchanged, but greenhouse gas emissions increased to 32.4 grams per one produced euro. The corresponding figure in 2012 was 30.0 grams.
As a SAP customer systems have moved to a large extent the SAP data center cloud services, they are now calculated as part of SAP’s total emissions. Therefore, the company’s absolute carbon dioxide emissions increased by 12 per cent.
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/sap+satsaa+ekologisuuteen+datakeskuksiin+100prosenttisesti+uusiutuvaa+sahkoa/a979137
Tomi Engdahl says:
Commissioning solves operational issues, saves energy
In this HVAC commissioning project, the engineering team saved money and energy at an existing telecom equipment building
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/commissioning-solves-operational-issues-saves-energy/857962aab341d1bd4c7666b89d1aad33.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781&[email protected]
Most chiller plant and fan system commissioning can produce energy savings that can pay off in six months to two years and create value for the owner for the entire life of the equipment. The payback is even quicker for facilities that operate 24×7, like hospitals, data centers, 911 centers, telecom equipment buildings, and others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Selecting energy-efficient transformers
Engineers should know the design concepts for selecting and sizing transformers to help achieve energy efficiency.
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/selecting-energy-efficient-transformers/03676c3cdea4b1e7eee717a402112c57.html
Transformers are perhaps among the most overlooked components within an electrical distribution system.
If a transformer fails or is improperly sized, catastrophic outages, which are not quick and easy to fix, could occur. Also, transformers don’t shut off; they continue to use current and generate heat 24 hr a day, seven days a week.
Transformers are available in many different flavors.
Generally, there are three purposes of a transformer: Change the voltage, isolate power systems, and harmonic accommodation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Transformer efficiency: Minimizing transformer losses
Matching a transformer to its anticipated load is a critical aspect of reducing energy consumption.
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/transformer-efficiency-minimizing-transformer-losses/84a7466f05abe1341ddb4b5a402249e9.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Integrating power monitoring systems
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/integrating-power-monitoring-systems/b4aebde9b6f960e5ec0ae6ab44169be1.html
After determining the power load profile of a commercial building, engineers need to ensure the system is monitored and integrated with the building’s other engineered systems. Here a group of experts shed light on how to approach integrating power monitoring systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Q: Is there free cooling in northern climates?
A: Yes, and carefully consider humidity. Higher-temperature data centers work well in northern climates. However, you must also consider power costs, taxes, and other costs. Locations vary in their tax incentives and costs of doing business.
Source: Integration: The future of data centers
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/integration-the-future-of-data-centers/24983e700d203ae09c36b0dee6fd6e58.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scale Model WWII Craft Takes Flight With Fuel From the Sea Concept
Using an innovative and proprietary NRL electrolytic cation exchange module (E-CEM), both dissolved and bound CO2 are removed from seawater at 92 percent efficiency by re-equilibrating carbonate and bicarbonate to CO2 and simultaneously producing H2. The gases are then converted to liquid hydrocarbons
CO2 in the air and in seawater is an abundant carbon resource, but the concentration in the ocean (100 milligrams per liter [mg/L]) is about 140 times greater than that in air, and 1/3 the concentration of CO2 from a stack gas (296 mg/L).
See more at: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/scale-model-wwii-craft-takes-flight-with-fuel-from-the-sea-concept#sthash.rWZQlcjV.dpuf