Jun
22
WRITTEN BY:
Greg Goode
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Benjamin Franklin once said, "The only things certain in life are death and taxes”.
Currently, the hot topic of discussion in Australia is the Australian
carbon tax. The ramifications of this tax are not yet fully understood and the various political parties and independents who are negotiating the framework are themselves divided, so it is anybody’s guess as to the detail. It is highly unlikely that even with detailed treasury modelling our elected members will even appreciate every nuance of the tax and thus from a data centre perspective one may even envisage that the tax in the fullness of time could lead to a rather quick extinction of energy inefficient data centres. Don’t forget that this tax is only the precursor to a full blown Emission Trading Scheme which will be initiated within three years of the carbon tax implementation. The trading scheme will be subject to full global market forces and thus the likelihood of carbon prices increasing significantly is a very possible scenario. That extinction may be swift, like that of the dinosaurs.
Data centre users are not only going to have the pleasure of paying for their energy usage (electricity) which is used to power IT, cooling and a host of ancillary services, but also the CO² which is produced. A double whammy!
The carbon tax debate in Australia, or lack off, has been dogged more by politics than rational debate. So, as to how it will affect our society commercially at the industry level and the domestic user level is anyone’s guess at this point in time.
The sitting government has yet to set a price per tonne, however one can be sure that there will be a price and that the set price will climb from day one. Couple this with the rising energy costs in Australia and any data centre user who believes that they, like
King Cnut can hold back the tide will be rudely awakened.
So where will this tax place the Australian Data Centre user when it comes to pass?
Will it:
· Directly or indirectly affect how data centres operate?
· Affect how they will be built in the future?
· Affect where they are built?
Fortunately there are others who are already experiencing carbon regulatory controls beyond the Australian border so we can start to gauge what the impact may be in Australia.
In Europe there are numerous initiatives in place that are engineering individuals and companies away from carbon intensive products and processes. Some of these initiatives are:
· European Union directives are pursuing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and more efficient use of energy. They are also labelling entire buildings and individual products so users can appreciate the performance from a carbon emissions perspective.
· Building codes that seek to maximise energy performance and carbon reduction have now evolved to cover the data centre rather than just office building environments and the domestic home.
Across the channel in the United Kingdom (UK) the government has taken steps to modify carbon usage through a tax known as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. This scheme is in its infancy and is undergoing change so industries have no certainty as to how it will affect them in the long run.
The
CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme was initiated on the 1
st April 2010 by the UK Government. Its primary aim is to drive down the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 to levels that existed pre-1990. It was initially designed as a cap-and-trade scheme targeting private and public organisations with an energy usage of 6,000MW per year, equating to approximately 20,000 users.
A review of this scheme, completed in October 2010 by George Osborne has changed the way the revenue raised by the scheme is disbursed. The change has been seen by many as nothing more than a carbon tax by stealth. The money raised will now flow to general revenue rather than recycled to participants with the incentive aspect of the scheme now diluted leaving nothing more than a business tax.
Presently CRC has direct implications on data centres. Regardless if the data centre sits as an independent entity or is a larger part of a company’s energy portfolio it will contribute to the overall company’s CRC performance. The data centres must have auditable systems to report CO² (monitor, measure and manage). If they don’t comply, they will incur penalties on a daily basis or contribute to penalties in the larger mix of energy use. Also on the cards, is the creation of an annual report through a public league of tables and the ability to purchase carbon allowances (the right to pollute).
How does all of this play out in Australia with its proposed carbon tax?
Australia will of course look to capitalise on carbon reduction initiatives by adopting overseas ideas. However these coupled with our own flavour of building codes e.g.
NABERS and the imposition of the carbon tax will effectively over time drive out data centres which do not look to minimise their energy usage and thus their CO² production.
Could this lead to a time when Australian data centres will predominately implement “free air cooling” systems?
To do so, they must be located in a higher latitudes (say at 51deg South or beyond) or high elevation geographical terrain (maybe the ACT) to capitalise on ambient atmospheric conditions which permit greater utilisation of such systems.
Of course Australian data centre users could just as easily build facilities off shore in countries that have far less stringent environmental regulations and associated cost imposts. This action would of course require that there is suitable telecommunication links to the greater worldwide web.
But then there is cloud computing.
The concept whereby software, applications, storage, infrastructure, etc are delivered as services on demand. This possibly will appeal to data centre users as the cost structure may reduce the data centre user’s exposure to the carbon tax through better efficiencies in processing.
It is highly speculative at this point in time, however I believe that this tax will have far reaching currently unrealised consequences for all Australians. I also doubt the data centre industry and its users have yet even begun to fully appreciate the changes the tax will have on their future strategic and tactical planning over the next 10 to 20 years.
Just when you think that as a data centre user life couldn’t get any better with all of the innovative changes that have occurred in the last 6 years, the industry seems to have the
Sword of Damocles hanging over it, not a great place to be sitting.
2 COMMENTS SO FAR...
RE: Read all about it, carbon tax kills Data Centres!
Hi Greg, interesting article. As you know there is very little incentive right now for new data centres to be built using the most efficient forms of IT and cooling systems and it will be very interesting to see if the end user starts to vote with their feet in terms of which data centres are the acceptable choice for co-location of IT equipment. The current data centre co-lo models face possible disaster once new data centres start to emerge that have actually spent a bit more in order to get the operational benefits of things like KyotoCooling and other airside economiser systems.
I don't necessarily agree that we need to draw a line across the country in trying to define where efficient data centres can be built as the general climate in almost all of Australia is well suited to the use of an indirect airside economiser like KyotoCooling which allows us to ignore the mosture levels in the air and simply rely on the available ambient air temperatures. We did some analysis recently for a small project in Townsville and the results are fairly suprising in terms of the efficiency levels that can be achieved.
BY Tony Khoury ON
Monday, 4 July 2011
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RE: Read all about it, carbon tax kills Data Centres!
The following study done by myself and assisted by a scientist is only to demonstrate that the warming can be mostly if not all explained by thermal emmissions or basically a large scale heat island study using energy use data. This is not intended to give any exact warming extent as average values are used and wind land cover etc are not taken into account (this is virtually impossible despite the claims of organisations such as NASA or CSIRO) Also the energy use is not constant and will have greater effects when weather is cold and heating is more widely used.
The energy use we shall use is the total annual use of fossil fuels and nuclear. These 2 energy sources are being released by humans.
Numbers used for calculations.
Area m2 is square metres
USA 9626091000000 m2
China 9596960000000 m2
France 547030000000 m2
Germany 357021000000 m2
United Kingdom 244820000000 m2
Planet Surface 510066000000000 m2
(Source : www.worldatlas.com)
Annual energy use based on energy use in 2009. Includes fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Does not include others such as wind solar biofuels geothermal or hydro.
Mtoe is Million tonnes or oil equivalent.
USA 2119.8 Mtoe
China 2037.7 Mtoe
France 228.8 Mtoe
Germany 285.6 Mtoe
United Kingdom 197.7 Mtoe
World 10424 Mtoe
(Source : Statistical review of world energy full report 2010 (Beyond Petroleum))
The following formula was used. It basically is working out the amount of energy in continuous watt output per hour per metre squared and then calculating out the expected change in temperature by using the average input of energy from the sun using Albedo and Suns energy per square according to NASA. This is not intended to give any accurate prediction but just a general prediction.
Mtoe* 11.63*1 000 000 000 000 (conversion of Mtoe to Watts)*0.7 (energy available as thermal energy)/365/24(conversion to Watt output per hour)/land area in square metres(to give energy output per square metre per hour)*Kelvin 287/342/.703(to give estimated temperature change where Kelvin 287 is earth average temperature 342 is available energy from sun and 0.703 is the amount available to the troposphere after the albedo)
After doing these calculations if the air never left the country and everything else such as albedo remained constant mentioned these would be the approximate temperature changes.
USA 0.24 degrees increase
China 0.23 ,,
France 0.46 ,,
Germany 0.88 ,,
United Kingdom 0.89 ,,
World 0.0224 ,,
Conclusions: If a climate model printout has not taken this into account the printouts highest value shall be the greater of the recycling price to the use as a biofuel (but watch out for the thermal emissions). Most fuel use is over land and in the northern hemisphere so this is where the expected highest results are likely. Anecdotely this could be the effect in the antarctic peninsular but it is very difficult to get any fuel use figures. If this is the case the increases are likely to be in summer as this is when the scientists travel there.
Note; The energy available is a very conservative estimation based on average power station efficiency and vehicle efficiency and uses eg. domestic use of energy is far higher with average households spending over 50% of energy dirrectly for heating (hot water cooking and space heating). The amount of energy from sun will not be accurate as the albedo and latitudes on the earth could have a big effect.
BY Kelly Liddle ON
Monday, 4 July 2011
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