Carbon Footprints

We’ve done quite a bit of work with large scale data centres over the last year so this article in CNN Money, Server farm goes solar, is opportune. Server farm, AISO.net has unveiled a fully solar powered data centre, powered by 120 solar panels located on two large sets of arrays on either side of their data centre.

To slash energy consumption, AISO.net, based in the USA, switched from 120 individual servers to four IBM blades running virtualization software that lets one computer do the work of multiple machines. The cooling system cranks up for only about 10 minutes an hour, and when the outside temperature drops to 60 degrees, air is sucked into the building to cool the servers. Solar tubes built into the roof illuminate the facility’s interior.

This is just the sort of story we’ll be seeing much more of as the serious business community wakes up to the dangers, and the opportunities presented by the climate crisis. Those making headway now will be the ones to reap the benefits as the whole world is forced, sooner or later, to adjust to a carbon constrained world.

We still hear the occasional talking head telling us that they (the world, the economy, etc etc) simply can’t afford to make such a shift. Initiatives like AISO’s are stimulating a boom in renewable energy employment, investment and use. Another story on CNN Money, The green job boom points out that:

[T]he Energy and Resources Group at the University of California Berkeley thinks the boom will deliver something more along the lines of one million new jobs by 2020.

Champions of renewable energy tout the jobs angle as another reason why the government should pour money into subsidies and other incentives for the industry.

People forget that most of the fossil fuel industries are supported, world-wide, by massive amounts for corporate welfare, from direct subsidies through to public funds for military actions whose principle goal is the securing of oil and gas.

Supporters of renewable energy say there will be new jobs for technicians to install rooftop solar arrays and backyard windmills, jobs at manufacturers making parts for utility-scale wind and solar equipment, and jobs in agriculture, harvesting biomass.

In addition, they say, these jobs will won’t get outsourced.

“We’re not going to import biofuel from Saudi Arabia,” said Dan Kammen, a professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California Berkeley.

“The installation of solar panels is not something that can be exported,” said George Sterzinger, head of the Renewable Energy Policy Project. “These are good, skilled, well-paying jobs.”

Moving to renewable energy sources makes sense any way you look at it. The faster we can wean ourselves off carbon, the better for our health, our economy, and of course our environment. — DS

Technorati Tags: business, carbon neutral, climate change, data center, data centre, emissions reduction, energy efficiency, global warming, green power, solar, solar power

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy, Forces for Good, The Carbon Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.