[CAnet - news] Reducing CO2 - a new "for profit" service for telcos

For more information on this item please visit my blog at=20
http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
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[Many telcos have undertaken initiatives to reduce their carbon =
footprint,
both as a cost saving measure, and also to show themselves as being good
corporate citizens.  But some telcos are starting to realize that these
measures to reduce their own carbon footprint can also be an attractive
business offering for their corporate customers. Large corporations face =
the
same challenges as telcos with the high cost of power and the insatiable
demand from IT for additional energy to power their ever growing number =
of
servers. Governments are also starting to mandate public sector
organizations to become carbon neutral, and soon may mandate private
companies to be carbon neutral as well which is being further spurred on
with the advent of carbon taxes.

Telcos are well suited to deploy zero carbon data centers in remote
locations with plenty of cheap renewable power connected by high speed
optical networks. BT is a good example where they plan to build COs =
powered
by on-site windmills.  These sites will not serve BT's needs, but are =
also
ideal for hosting customer's IT equipment as well.  More importantly the
telco and customer can earn valuable carbon offset dollars which can =
defray
most of the expensive of locating servers at these sites. Some telcos =
are
also following the lead of companies like IBM and Fujitsu and arranging =
for
the brokering of carbon offset dollars for their customers who relocate =
IT
equipment to their zero carbon data centers.

Using local generated renewable power is lot a cheaper than "wheeling" =
green
power from the utilities. It also guarantees the telco and their =
customers a
long term supply of cheap power with no threat of disruption or cost
increases by the local utility.

Reduced carbon emissions is also a service that can offered to broadband
residential customers, and is way of providing guaranteed revenue for =
the
telco to pay for the fiber infrastructure that is necessary to support =
zero
carbon applications.  The telco is no longer dependent on the fickle
revenues of triple play or the competitive threat of the "over top" =
players
such as Google etc.  Please see http://green-broadband.blogspot.com for
details. Some excerpts from Converge Digest and Economist--BSA]

www.convergedigest.com

BT Plans 80% CO2 Reduction by 2020
BT announced a goal to cut its carbon emissions intensity by 80 percent
across the globe by 2020 , setting one of the most aggressive corporate
carbon reduction targets worldwide.

The company also published a new model for measuring and tracking carbon
emissions =96 backed by the Carbon Disclosure Project. This represents =
an
important step in measuring carbon emissions in a consistent way across =
the
globe.

BT said it intends to meet the 80 percent reduction target through a
continued combination of energy efficiency, on-site renewable generation
(aiming for 25 per cent of its UK electricity to come from dedicated =
wind
turbines by 2016) and purchased low-carbon electricity.

BT estimated that it has already reduced emissions in the UK by nearly =
60
percent between 1996 and 2008.

The majority of worldwide CO2 emissions result from activities in the
corporate sector, but up until now it has not been clear what targets an
individual corporation needs to achieve to make its contribution to the
international challenge.
http://www.btplc.com
02-Jun-08

In October 2007, BT announced plans to develop wind farms aimed at
generating up to 25% of its existing UK electricity requirements by =
2016.
The company expects to invest up to =A3250m in the project.

BT is one of Britain's biggest consumers of electricity, with an annual
requirement of around 0.7% of the UK's entire consumption. The company =
said
its wind farms could generate a total of 250MW of electricity =96 enough =
to
meet the power needs of 122,000 homes or a city the size of Coventry.

BT is currently identifying high wind-yield sites on or adjacent to =
BT-owned
land for development with the aim of generating power from 2012 onwards.


http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D11413148

Down on the server farm

The real-world implications of the rise of internet computing

As computing becomes a utility, with services that can be consumed from
everywhere and on any device, ever more thought is being put into where =
to
put the infrastructure it needs.

Data centres are essential to nearly every industry and have become as =
vital
to the functioning of society as power stations are. Lately, centres =
have
been springing up in unexpected places: in old missile bunkers, in =
former
shopping malls=97even in Iceland. America alone has more than 7,000 data
centres, according to IDC, a market-research firm. And each is housing =
ever
more servers, the powerful computers that crunch and dish up data. In
America the number of servers is expected to grow to 15.8m by =
2010=97three
times as many as a decade earlier.

Companies have been packing ever more machines into data centres, both =
to
increase their computing capacity and to comply with new data-retention
rules.=20

As servers become more numerous, powerful and densely packed, more =
energy is
needed to keep the data centres at room temperature. Often just as much
power is needed for cooling as for computing. The largest data centres =
now
rival aluminium smelters in the energy they consume. Microsoft's $500m =
new
facility near Chicago, for instance, will need three electrical =
substations
with a total capacity of 198 megawatts. As a result, finding a site for =
a
large data centre is now, above all, about securing a cheap and reliable
source of power, says Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge, a website =
that
chronicles the boom in data-centre construction.

And with demand for computing picking up in other parts of the world, =
the
boom in data-centre construction is spreading to unexpected places.
Microsoft is looking for a site in Siberia where its data can chill. =
Iceland
has begun to market itself as a prime location for data centres, again =
for
the cool climate, but also because of its abundant geothermal energy.
Hitachi Data Systems and Data Islandia, a local company, are planning to
build a huge data-storage facility. It will be underground, for security =
and
to protect the natural landscape.


Yet it will not just be market economics that determines the shape of =
the
clouds. Local governments give tax breaks in the hope that the presence =
of
big data centres will attract other businesses (the computing plants
themselves usually employ only a few dozen people

In future the geography of the cloud is likely to get even more complex.
=93Virtualisation=94 technology already allows the software running on
individual servers to be moved from one data centre to another, mainly =
for
back-up reasons. One day soon, these =93virtual machines=94 may migrate =
to
wherever computing power is cheapest, or energy is greenest. Then =
computing
will have become a true utility=97and it will no longer be apt to talk =
of
computing clouds, so much as of a computing atmosphere.


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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily =
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those  of the CANARIE board or management.

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blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/


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