If you haven’t noticed, the last half of this first decade of the 21^st century has raised the possibility that we are all going to perish in a runaway, greenhouse Armageddon. Astronomers theorise that, billions of years ago, this happened naturally to our closest planetary neighbour, Venus, as it was forming. (I can’t help myself; I just have to bring astronomy into the discussion as it is a passion of mine.) Here on Earth, it’s we humans that have supposedly kicked off the process by burning carbon fuels … you know, oil, coal and gas.

 

Earth scientists have started to better understand the inter-relationship of the biosphere and how a simple gas such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) can, over time, change the balance of the planet’s gas mix and ultimately change its temperature. Our planet didn’t start out with the atmospheric mix we know today.  It slowly evolved. I suggest you research a few astronomy books on planetary science if you wish to understand the science. (Oops, there’s my last outreach plug for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.)

 

The ‘we’re all going to die’ global warming catch-cry has been building. It’s been brought about by forums such as the Kyoto conference and the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC as it is known), along with a raft of other communication from eco-centric non-government organisations, scientists and politicians. Whether you agree or disagree with the science that global warming since the industrial revolution is anthropogenic, especially in the last 50 years, there is definitely a groundswell of awareness that there has to be better ways to produce energy and use energy on this planet.

 

(By the way, I can remember it was the Nuclear Winter that was going to get us in the 70s and 80s … a scenario that still may be on the cards given the proliferation of nations who can chuck nuclear weapons around the planet.)

 

There seems to be the right dynamics at an international level to make significant energy changes this century. Whether the global warming science is right or wrong (and I, for one, hope it’s a fizzer) there cannot be a better time in our history to embrace, globally, technologies that either use hydrocarbon energy more effectively and efficiently or, better still, take most of the hydrocarbons we burn and replace them with low-to-no CO₂ emission alternatives.

 

 

The modern data centre is a manifestation of this century and, therefore, the data centre industry is very embryonic. (I don’t count the computer room before 2000 CE, and I can assure you I was there during most of the computer room’s reign.)  I predict the industry will grow significantly as an energy consumer in the next 10 to 20 years. The industry has definitely embraced minimising energy usage and ultimately reducing CO₂ without any regulatory stick whipping it along.  It has been something of a quiet achiever, you might say.

 

Articles in the data centre industry press have espoused that approximately 1% of the Earth’s electrical energy (roughly seventeen 1000 MW power plants) is consumed by data centres around the globe. It’s probably risen to 2% since the results were first reported, and it will continue to climb this century. This won’t be through inefficiencies, but because the ‘global village’—that’s you and me—has become more and more hooked on data in such forms as entertainment, knowledge, financial services, government services, scientific research, communication … the list goes on ad infinitum. If governments of the world are worried about addiction, I would have to say move over alcohol, drugs and gambling as data is fast becoming the number one ‘fix’, and with it the need for more data centres to distribute it.

 

The ultimate aim of any data centre is to use every ounce of electrical energy to compute, not to waste it on cooling and distributing power. There are numerous data centre vendors across the spectrum of data centre fabric and infrastructure, along with thought-leadership industry groups, which are applying their collective energies to seeking smarter ways of reducing the overall energy footprint of the data centre. This is good news for the data centre user as they reduce operating costs and, at the same time, reduce their dependency on a resource—electricity—that will become more expensive to produce if emission and carbon taxes are ratified, and scarcer as demand starts to exceed supply. Oh yeah, it’s also good news for the planet as less CO₂ is pumped into the atmosphere.

 

The number of energy-minimisation solutions and alternative energy solutions being discussed in the data centre industry are far too many to be discussed in this blog.  But I, for one, see an exciting decade ahead for an industry which is embracing extremely innovative energy-use technologies.

 

One might have said at the end of the 20^th century, that information technology and energy had no relationship and that Moore’s Law was not going to be throttled by lack of energy. But this cannot be further from the truth. Data, in all its forms, is fast becoming an essential element in the fabric of the human race.  And to capture, manipulate and distribute data takes energy—something that to-date has been taken for granted. The focus has been on increasing energy production (from hydrocarbons) as opposed to using it more efficiently and, more importantly, looking to replace hydrocarbon production with alternatives that don’t produce gases that will take us down the ‘Venus path’.

 

The moribund automobile industry has been talking about an alternative energy source for decades (even though some of the first cars were electric) and are only just now starting to embrace alternative energy sources, either as a hybrid electrical and hydrocarbon source or as a pure electric source. The data centre industry may not get the same press as it comes no where near the transport industry for global energy consumption.  But it won’t be singled out in this century as the industry that tipped the planet over and roasted its inhabitants!

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