Green Data

Posted on May 1, 2008

What color is your data? Data center, that is. Odds are, it’s not very green.

Recent studies of pollution causes have discovered a new, major source out there. Not cars and planes but data centers. Hard to believe but projections are that those centers and the many yet to come will outstrip airlines by 2020 in their GHG emissions. Right now, they are only half the airlines’ levels but that has been changing rapidly since 2000 and with no slowing of expected demand levels, in just 12 years they will outstrip the airlines’ emission levels.

To gain perspective of its impact, an average data center uses the energy of 25,000 homes. Wow! I thought I ran a data center, now I realize my usage is more like a 2 bedroom bungalow. So we’re talking like a — real data center here, no pretenders allowed in these calculations.

This same study calls for doubling the energy efficiency by 2012,