[1]An architectural rendering of the new Facebook data center planned for Prineville, Oregon.
None of the major facts have changed in the
ongoing controversy [2] in which Greenpeace International has objected to Facebook’s energy sourcing for its new data center in Oregon. But the environmental group managed to grab a fresh round of headlines today when a Greenpeace executive wrote a
letter [3] to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg restating its existing grievances.
Greenpeace’s objection: Facebook’s new Oregon data center, which has been designed to be highly energy-efficient, will receive its power from a local utility that uses coal to generate the majority of its power.
Today’s headlines provide an example of why Greenpeace is a problematic foe for companies like Facebook. It has a major media megaphone, and wields it effectively.
Greenpeace also knows how to take a complex issue – and data center energy sourcing certainly qualifies – and simplify it. But not always in a useful way. Greenpeace is being selective in which facts it presents, and addressing only a limited portion of a complex issue.
A case in point: In one of its
blog posts [4] about data centers and coal, Greenpeace noted comments by Nokia’s Mike Manos at The Uptime Symposium this spring. Here’s the rub: a Greenpeace representative was also present an hour earlier at another Uptime Symposium panel, in which data center providers that have implemented solar energy noted the challenges with renewable energy: namely, that it’s expensive, hard to scale and not available from many utilities.
We’ve shared a
summary of that session [5], which is relevant to the discussion. It’s part of our special report on
Data Centers & Renewable Energy [6], which provides examples of facilities using
solar [7],
wind [8] and
geothermal power [9], along with a pragmatic look at the challenges around green power sourcing and generation.
In today’s letter to Facebook, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo calls on Facebook to “commit to a plan to phase out the use of dirty coal-fired electricity to power your data centers.” Back in March, we noted that Greenpeace has not yet met that standard with its own IT infrastructure (see
Greenpeace’s Hosting: Not ‘Truly Green’ [10]).
Is Greenpeace’s infrastructure relevant to the ongoing discussion? It underscores the fact that the issue of
data center energy sourcing [11]is not as simple as ”unfriending dirty coal.”
Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/09/01/greenpeace-facebook-the-media-megaphone/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/facebook-prineville.jpg
[2] ongoing controversy: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/02/17/facebook-responds-on-coal-power-in-data-center/
[3] letter: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/executive-director-of-greenpeace-to-ceo-of-fa/blog/26324
[4] blog posts: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/Cool-IT/hey-coal-get-off-of-my-cloud/blog/11961
[5] summary of that session: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/renewable-energy-or-improved-efficiency/
[6] Data Centers & Renewable Energy: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/special-report-data-centers-renewable-energy/
[7] solar: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/solar-powered-data-centers/
[8] wind: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/wind-powered-data-centers/
[9] geothermal power: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/geothermal-data-centers/
[10] Greenpeace’s Hosting: Not ‘Truly Green’: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/03/03/greenpeaces-hosting-not-truly-green/
[11] data center energy sourcing : http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/10/29/data-centers-focus-on-greener-power/
[12] Rich Miller: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/author/richm/
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