Data centre carbon emissions soar (10-Oct-07)
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Full story: Data centre carbon emissions soar (10-Oct-07)
A new Gartner report has revealed that data centres account for around a quarter of all IT industry carbon emissions. There are three main reasons which account for such a large portion of IT CO2, these are a lack of floor space, a failure to house high density servers and increased power consumption and heat generation, all three of these will affect the cost of running a data centre.
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An inconvenient truth
Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 10 Oct 2007 Data centres account for around a quarter of all IT industry carbon emissions, according to a new report from Gartner.
Data centres are not the top producer of carbon emissions, however, as PCs and monitors account for 40 per cent of all output.
But the effect of data centres is rising sharply as virtualisation and increased data processing become more important.
"Data centres account for such a large portion of ICT CO2 emissions for three main reasons," said Rakesh Kumar, a research vice president at Gartner.
"There is a lack of floor space, a failure to house high-density servers and increased power consumption and heat generation. These three issues will affect the cost of running a data centre."
The emissions from such centres are rising fast, and Gartner warned that new technologies will add to the load.
Kumar estimated that microprocessor energy consumption alone will double within the next 10 years, for example.
The analyst advocates setting up sustainable IT groups within companies to monitor levels of emissions, establishing a green procurement programme and getting a clear picture of current and future energy costs.
Although PCs account for a larger proportion of carbon emissions than data centres, manufacturers are making positive efforts to cut or offset emissions. Such plans have yet to be put in place for data centres.
- Source: VNUnet
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Data centres hike CO2 levels
Rising carbon emissions will double again in five years, warns analyst
Tom Young, Computing, 18 Oct 2007
Energy use and carbon emission from Corporate IT systems are spirallingThe world’s data centres are responsible for the same volume of carbon emissions as the average European country, and more than double those of Finland and Portugal.
Data centres account for almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the 580 million tonnes of CO2 released annually by the production and use of computer systems, according to the latest research from analyst Gartner.
And despite the development of more environmentally-friendly technology, the situation will only get worse, according to Gartner analyst Rakesh Kumar.
“Organisations are growing their infrastructure exponentially and emissions from data centres are expected to double by 2012,” said Kumar.
Power-hungry hardware and lack of floor space which increases cooling requirements are key factors in spiralling energy consumption.
And despite awareness campaigns, many businesses still do not appreciate the disproportionate amount of power used by their data centres.
The issue is starting to appear on firms’ radar, but a lack of coherence in government policy is slowing progress, said Ollie Ross, head of research at blue-chip user group The Corporate IT Forum.
“Big firms need far clearer guidance about what legislation is intended around the production of carbon emissions,” she said.
Regulation of renewable power supplies is an area where the government could have an immediate effect, said Ross.
“The high costs of renewable power are holding back many large firms,” she said.
“IT chiefs are confident that costs will drop as demand grows and government could play an influential role in encouraging that demand.”
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: “If you simply compare the costs of renewable energy with the same amount of electricity from fossil fuels then there is inadequate incentive to switch.”
A further danger is that rising UK costs will push data centres offshore, where environmental regulations may be more lax, said Greenpeace campaigner Iza Kruszewska.
“The impact will be increased as sites spring up in developing countries with less efficient technology and higher temperatures,” she said.
Europe’s average national CO2 emission level is 134 million tonnes, according to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre.
- Source: Computing
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