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58% Coal is still 58% Coal

eikish 2nd Sep 2010

Both parties are partially right in this debate.

Barry please don't over emphasize Facebook's data center's efficiency (to confuse consumers?) when you are indeed, like you say, using 58% coal to power a huge data center? There is a BIG difference in powering "a few server", like you call Greenpeaces data center, vs. the energy needed to serve part of your 500M users and the emissions from doing that. Do you expect to grow Facebook and need even more power or have you reached the top?

The IT industry today is responsible for an estimated 2% of all emissions (Gartner) but may grow to be one of the biggest polluters by 2020 (McKinsey). Now cloud computing is the fastest growing sector of IT (IDC) and therefor poses the most important opportunity to turn the industry around. Facebook being the biggest and most talked about player in the field may have influenced Greenpeace to target it specifically instead of let's say Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter...but their heart is in the right place. Now is the time to act before we get 5 or 20 "Facebook's".

I applaud your goal of having a low PUE but considering the power source I doubt that was an environmental decision over an economical one. Overall almost all new data centers have a PUE below 1.5 so your numbers are outdated.

However you are partly right about your options in energy, they aren't great in the US yet. But being Facebook you certainly have the resources to innovate (e.g. your own extra power from solar/wind/batteries) and you could well have chosen another location with a better footprint e.g. Iceland, Scotland, Norway or even Idaho! (http://www.vertatique.com/debate-about-what-truly-cleangreen-energy-ict)

Finally I'm interested in your offsetting strategy that you mentioned. Have you announced a massive offsetting plan for making up for the overall emissions of your infrastructure? I'm realistic enough to know you won't be scrapping your data centers in the near future so that might give some people a little ease of mind, after all it's your users driving your need for so much energy.

cheers
Eirikur Hrafnsson
CEO Greenqloud
http://greenqloud.com