How is this is even possible?

Datacenters/hosters are converting energy into fiber pulses. Is there a datacenter on earth which solely uses solar/wind/geothermal to power their pdus? I very much doubt it.

Do people really think that going green means purchasing carbon credits?

The green phenomenon worked out great for Spain - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-18/spanish-solar-projects-on-brink-of-bankruptcy-as-subsidy-policies-founder.html

Going green is a marketing ploy.

Yeah, for sure some hosts have put up the green banners by buying carbon credits and whatnot, and yeah, it's more about marketing and wanting to tap into a current out there in the market.

It is possible to build a DC off the grid, but I wouldn't suggest it. You would just need a LOT of solar panels and a LOT of batteries, and you can make your own power and be off the grid. That's possible, it's just expensive and batteries are very non environmentally friendly, in their manufacturing and disposal of.

The problem with DCs is that they use LOTS of power, so a current DC could build their own solar farm on their roof or next to them if they have the room, that is grid connected. So during the day they would use the energy from their solar farm and at night pull energy off the grid.

What you described is true. Finding an investor who would construct such an earth-saving venture is impossible.

The only way to go completely green is to die and be buried and let the Earth reuse your body as plant mulch. :banana:

Other than that you can try to do the best you can, but even manufacturing the solar panels and windmills takes much power usage and environmental resources.
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yep, i have same mind here, go green on some place just become "one of business promotion way"

is i am right or wrong ?

. . . Other than that you can try to do the best you can, but even manufacturing the solar panels and windmills takes much power usage and environmental resources.
Manufacturing anything leaves a carbon footprint, so the answer is not to stop manufacturing.

Datacentres with access to adequate roof space can install arrays of solar panels, connected to the grid without using batteries. That's probably the best way to offset the amount of power coming off the grid, but you'd need a lot of solar panels to have any serious offset effect of the average DC's energy needs.

A green webhost is an oxymoron at best.

Yeah, for sure some hosts have put up the green banners by buying carbon credits and whatnot, and yeah, it's more about marketing and wanting to tap into a current out there in the market.


And some of them just rewrite the copy on their pitch pages while forgetting about even buying the carbon credits.

Going green seems to be the new thing how ever power will be super hard to be completly green

Guess it depends on the degree of energy savings you need to define as "going green".

For our company, when we moved from dedicated servers to AppLogic for cloud business we cut down from 8+ racks of servers in one datacenter to just one rack. The overall power draw went down proportionally as well.

Those savings worked for us both financially and from a "green" perspective, but we never went to buying green credits or paying for 100% wind energy or the like.

I guess we are all waiting for one of these hosts that advertise "green hosting" to chime in. We all seem to be in agreement that it is total bs.

Everybody always talks about solar and wind. There are other forms of "green" energy.

http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/unternehmen/umweltschutz

I am extremely doubtful that any investor is going to run a datacenter on 100% renewable power. I attached a picture of the battery room in the datacenter we colo in. Good luck keeping that charged without co2!

Is there a datacenter on earth which solely uses solar/wind/geothermal to power their pdus?


Yes (water produced), although we still have to have diesel for the 2N+ generators, so not 100% "carbon" friendly in an outage situation.

do not too over when using energy, is one of easy way to support "go green"

It is not possible to make the whole big data center work upon green energy. Though we can minimize the energy consumption at first.

Putting solar panels sounds good in hot weathers, but what will cool of those DC's which are beneath them.

There must be sustainable, govt. initiatives on such matter, I think govt. DC's should start upon thinking about this.

I am curious what country you live in where you believe the government should increase energy costs with hopes of potentially lowering co2 emissions.

I am curious what world you live in where you expect to never have to pay for energy. The side effects of "cheap" are far from cheap, and at some point very soon people are going to have to start paying. The longer you wait, the more you're going to have to pay.

I can only assume that comment was directed at me. If it was not, I apologize and I would advise you to try to make it more clear in the future who you are talking down to.

It is difficult for me to understand how you could possibly arrive at the conclusion that I think that I should not have to pay for energy. Here is a picture of one of my rows; I may know the cost of energy more then you think.

What does scare more then people like you who jump to ridiculous assumptions are politicians who say things like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqHL404zhcU

I can only assume that comment was directed at me.

It was.

Please explain how your first statement (from 2-3 posts up) is bad in the context of the second statement. Often, to obtain a higher quality product/service, one must pay more. The more people who move to the higher quality product/service, the more efficiently they can operate, and the lower their prices can go (assuming they're not corporate e-peen-cash-counters like certain telephone and cable companies :P).

Often, to obtain a higher quality product/service, one must pay more

Agreed, I do not think anyone would contest this.

Please explain how your first statement (from 2-3 posts up) is bad in the context of the second statement.

You would have to be more specific and quote me, because it is unreasonable for me to look (2-3 posts up) and explain the context from the "second statement". Basically, you are being unclear and lacking any specificity. This is what the quote function is for. You will be able to drill your points more effectively this way.

The more people who move to the higher quality product/service, the more efficiently they can operate, and the lower their prices can go (assuming they're not corporate e-peen-cash-counters like certain telephone and cable companies

This is a very broad statement, and quite flawed. I believe you are saying that if the consumer pays for a higher quality product, the efficiency increases. I suppose this could be true in specific circumstances, but this has nothing to do with "going green". If I upgrade my hosting product to a server with double the resources specifications and 1.5x the energy consumption, does this guarantee I am creating less co2? If I Upgrade a Mazda to a Mercedes, does my co2 output decrease? It is impossible to say, particularly because there is no formula or value which one must reach to be considered "green", except emitting no carbon.

I stick to my premise that "going green" in an industry completely reliant on energy is total BS and at best a marketing scheme. The people who might buy into this are the ones purchasing fruit at 3x the price labeled "organic" when it came from China. (ie dumb people and/or hippies)

I am curious what country you live in where you believe the government should increase energy costs with hopes of potentially lowering co2 emissions.

There's your quote.
Statement 1: government should increase enegery costs
Statement 2: potential decrease in CO2 emissions

The more people who move to the higher quality product/service, the more efficiently they can operate, and the lower their prices can go (assuming they're not corporate e-peen-cash-counters like certain telephone and cable companies

This is a very broad statement, and quite flawed. I believe you are saying that if the consumer pays for a higher quality product, the efficiency increases.


No, I'm saying that the more people use a service (any service), the more efficiently the provider of that service can provide it, and thereby decrease the cost to their users. Hiring a crew to do a one-time set up of a PV system and then firing them a week later when they're done, then hiring another crew to do it two months later somewhere else isn't efficient. You have to find a new crew each time, get a contract written each time, etc. If you've got lots of customers buying PV systems, you can have a few permanent crews, so you've only got to write that contract once, you don't have to keep hiring different people because the group you hired the last time was busy on another contract the next time you needed them, you've got a predictable incoming cash flow from customers, etc.

Look up "Solar City".

The people who might buy into this are the ones purchasing fruit at 3x the price labeled "organic" when it came from China. (ie dumb people and/or hippies)

There's plenty of organic stuff that doesn't come from China. See your local farmers' market. Actually, I've never seen anything in my grocery store that came from China labeled organic. Green is only as much of a fad as anti-obesity. The disgustingly squishy morons are going to have a lot of problems in the future, and so will the coal-breathers.

This thread deteriorated quickly. Back to the OP, I do not know of a DC that operates on 100% renewable sources. Haven't even heard of one successfully attempting it as of yet. We moved part of our generators to NG instead of Diesel which reduced some footprint, but the uptime has to be maintained so that diesel tank will remain in place along with the emergency portables.

I hate seeing the green banners and marketing by hosts that it is obvious they are doing nothing but buying/claiming carbon offset certs. That is not green and honestly unlimited hosting claims are just as believable. The tech industry consumes a lot and most of them do nothing to help offset their usage so I see it as a frivolous claim personally.

This thread deteriorated quickly. Back to the OP, I do not know of a DC that operates on 100% renewable sources.

Except that there have already been two examples given that are normally "100%" (obviously, if the backup generators have to come on, they aren't hydro-electric) powered by hydro-electric. Actually reading the thread FTW.

I saw one example and still can't claim 100% if the generators are dependent on dino-fuel. They have done a heck of a job I will say that though.

Found this : http://didier.misson.net/blog/2009/09/10/green-ovh-serveur-solaire-nopower/ looks like a small test setup

the things inside the data centre need to be designed and manufactured... the wind turbines need manufacture etc. green is a complicated business but the earth is an abundant place. surely the best place to start is for us to appreciate what we use and cut our wastage.

No, I'm saying that the more people use a service (any service), the more efficiently the provider of that service can provide it, and thereby decrease the cost to their users. Hiring a crew to do a one-time set up of a PV system and then firing them a week later when they're done, then hiring another crew to do it two months later somewhere else isn't efficient. You have to find a new crew each time, get a contract written each time, etc. If you've got lots of customers buying PV systems, you can have a few permanent crews, so you've only got to write that contract once, you don't have to keep hiring different people because the group you hired the last time was busy on another contract the next time you needed them, you've got a predictable incoming cash flow from customers, etc.

This sounds like a like a liberal economist trying to rationalize obamacare. Lets increase access, and costs must decrease!

I highly doubt one could go 100% green unless the DC is near a river and they have their own dam. You need LOT (as in, 100's of acres) of solar panels to get just 1MW and in average 10 servers will use 1KW so a DC with 10,000 servers will probably use about 1MW. This is a rough estimate based on the wattage my own home servers use so it's not exactly accurate but gives an idea.

Now if a DC is also into nuclear power research and has their own reactor... maybe that could work. :D Not sure if nuclear energy is considered green though but it's most likely better then burning fuel and creating CO/CO2.

No, I'm saying that the more people use a service (any service), the more efficiently the provider of that service can provide it, and thereby decrease the cost to their users. Hiring a crew to do a one-time set up of a PV system and then firing them a week later when they're done, then hiring another crew to do it two months later somewhere else isn't efficient. You have to find a new crew each time, get a contract written each time, etc. If you've got lots of customers buying PV systems, you can have a few permanent crews, so you've only got to write that contract once, you don't have to keep hiring different people because the group you hired the last time was busy on another contract the next time you needed them, you've got a predictable incoming cash flow from customers, etc.This sounds like a like a liberal economist trying to rationalize obamacare. Lets increase access, and costs must decrease!

That's a horrendously long stretch... Perhaps you could also discern from my post that rabid squirrels are planning to save the world by biting off the nuts of stupid people so that they can't reproduce? How is that in any way related to basic facts about supply and demand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand) and scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale)?

That's a horrendously long stretch... Perhaps you could also discern from my post that rabid squirrels are planning to save the world by biting off the nuts of stupid people so that they can't reproduce? How is that in any way related to basic facts about supply and demand and scale?


Are government subsidies involved in any way in squirrel consumption?

However, government subsidizing "green energy" through the use of taxes/penalties is applicable to this discussion, and my analogy of obamacare is fitting in my opinion. It is the same basic premise.

Going Green as much as possible => You run a webhosting company by paying for a Virtual Private Server. (no electrical cost since the server owner is paying). You run a business center from your home or office that is being used for some other purpose as well so you dont need to show the costs there.

That itself would be going extremely green.

OR you could just grow trees, save paper and build a farm !

And run a vps again on the side - and being green.

This isn't 'going green' because your vps and your home office are emitting carbon. What if your home office has 1000watts of lighting and your vps node consumes 6A of power at the datacenter? If I understand you correctly, because your hosting costs are virtualized, they represent no carbon output? Is that really what you believe?

As for growing trees to offset your carbon output, this is the definition of the green scam and leads into the carbon credit scheme. This is Al Gore/Obama/CCX thinking.

Until someone can post a formula for attaining 'green' ( I am interested in that), any organization in this industry that emits carbon is not 'green'.