Media.Knet.Ca

[Ottawa, Ontario]
When we think about the biggest producers of carbon emissions, we often
focus on the usual suspects, such as coal-burning power plants, car
exhaust, even indirect culprits like deforestation and energy
over-consumption.

But the next time you leave
your computer running, consider this: according to research done
by Global Action Plan in the UK, the Information and Communications
Technologies (ICT) industry is now the fastest growing sector for carbon
emissions in the world. It’s estimated that the ICT industry alone
produces carbon emissions equivalent to the carbon output of the entire
aviation industry. The more computers we use, the more carbon-emitting
energy is consumed to power them.

CANARIE, Canada's Advanced
Research and Innovation Network, is pleased to announce
$2.4 million in funding for four ground-breaking Green IT
projects aimed at reducing ICT’s carbon footprint and measuring the
impact of ICT and cyberinfrastructure on university electric
consumption.

CANARIE's biggest Green IT
funding recipient is the GreenStar Network, an alliance of
Canada's leading IT companies, universities and international partners, led
by Quebec's École de technologie supérieure (ETS) in
Montreal. CANARIE has given the GreenStar Network $2 million to
develop the world's first internet network, where the network nodes will be
powered entirely by wind and solar energy and yet will provide the same
reliability to users as the current Internet network does.

“We are incredibly proud to
launch the GreenStar Network under the leadership of CANARIE’s Green
IT Pilot program,” said Dr. Mohamed Cheriet, Director of
Synchromedia at ÉTS and spokesperson for the GreenStar
Network. “The GreenStar Network has come together to develop
low-carbon technologies, including renewable energy like wind and
solar-powered networks, virtualization, carbon quantification procedures,
and tools to ensure ICT’s carbon footprint remains under control and
doesn’t increase as the world becomes more and more reliant on
information and communications technologies.”

"CANARIE has always been a global
leader in high-speed networks that enable research and innovation. Now,
these Green IT initiatives demonstrate how CANARIE is once again
trailblazing the next evolution of networks that are committed to both
high performance AND the environment", said CANARIE President Guy
Bujold.

CANARIE's three other GREEN IT
funding recipients are: 

• A joint project between McGill University (CLUMEQ) and
  University of California, San Diego (SDSC Centre) to design an
  ultra-efficient data centre for high-performance computing applications.
  Funding: $163,000
• International Institute for Sustainable Development,
  based in Winnipeg, will conduct a study to assess the business case, and
  carbon-offset potential, for Canadian universities to use CANARIE's ultra
  high-speed network to run IT operations from remote, zero-carbon data
  centre facilities. Funding: $100,000
• University of British Columbia's Centre for
  Sustainability and Social Innovation at Sauder School of
  Business will develop a business case for how carbon offsets can
  be used to finance data centre relocations and how universities could
  implement this opportunity. Funding: $119,000

"CANARIE is taking the global lead
by funding Green IT innovation and that's something Canada can be very
proud of going into December's Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,"
said CANARIE Chief Research Officer and Green IT expert, Bill St.
Arnaud.

You can find more stats and quick
facts on carbon emissions from the ICT industry at http://www.canarie.ca/en/GreenIT-quickfacts.

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For more information and
media interviews, please contact:

Cheryl Rosebush
CANARIE
Manager, Communications
Cell: 613-697-4605
Office:
613-943-5374

About
CANARIE:

CANARIE Inc. is Canada's Advanced
Research and Innovation Network. Established in 1993, CANARIE manages an
ultra high-speed network, hundreds of times faster than the internet, which
facilitates leading-edge research and big science across Canada and around
the world. More than 39,000 researchers at nearly 200 Canadian universities
and colleges use the CANARIE Network, as well as researchers at institutes,
hospitals, and government laboratories throughout the country. The CANARIE
Network enables researchers to share and analyze massive amounts of data,
which can lead to ground-breaking scientific discoveries. CANARIE's
network, programs, and strategic partnerships with 12 regional networks in
Canada, and 100 international networks in more than 80 countries, stimulate
research that delivers economic, social, and cultural benefits to
Canadians.

CANARIE is a non-profit corporation
supported by membership fees, with major funding of its programs and
activities provided by the Government of Canada. For additional
information, please visit: www.canarie.ca.

About the GreenStar
Network:

The goal of the GreenStar Network
Project (GSN) is to initiate a Canadian consortium of industry,
universities and government agencies with the common goal of reducing
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from information & communication
technology (ICT) services. GSN will combine renewable energy with rigorous
carbon accounting to provide state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure upon which
universities, businesses, and governments can provide certifiably
low-carbon services. The expected result is the creation of tools,
protocols, procedures and use cases for a growing network of ICT service
providers that offer customers the lowest price and greenest services.

+++++++++++

From Bill St Arnaud's blog at

http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/ or http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------

With the growing power of supercomputers and data centers, people are starting to realize that cyber-infrastructure may soon have a significant impact on the environment because of its huge electrical consumption and the resultant CO2 emissions if the electricity that powers these systems comes from coal fired electrical plants. As I mentioned in a previous blog the UK Meteorological Office new supercomputer is one of the single biggest sources of CO2 emissions (Scope 2) in the UK. Paradoxically this is the same computer that is being used for climate modeling in that country. Thanks to a pointer from Steve Goldstein we learn that even America’s spy agency –NSA, is also running into energy issues and as such is building a huge new data centers in Utah and Texas, of which both will probably use dirty coal based electricity as well. There is also rumors that NCAR is building a new cyber-infrastructure center in Wyoming (presumably which will also use coal based electricity) which sort of undermines its own credibility as America’s leading climate research institute.

I suspect very shortly with all the new announcements of grids and supercomputers from OSG to Jaguar, that cyber-infrastructure collectively in the US will be one of the top sources of CO2 emissions as it is now in the UK. This is an unsustainable path and will come to haunt those cyber-infrastructure organizations, particularly if Congress passes a cap and trade bill. Cap and trade will increase the price of electricity for institutions and businesses by an “average” of 60% according to the EPA. But electrical prices will be substantially more in states that are totally dependent on coal fired electrical generation. Not only that, under the proposed cap and trade bills any organization that emits over 25,000 tons of CO2 per year (which includes most universities and research institutions) will be required to purchase emission allowances or offsets if they want to exceed their current level of emissions. It is not only traditional power generators, cement plants or manufacturers that will be affected by cap and trade. Most of the US higher ed and cyber-infrastructure research facilities will be similarly affected. However there is some good news: Cyber-infrastructure, if done right, can be a powerful tool for reducing CO2 emissions. Larry Smarr and I recently gave a talk on this topic at Educause which is now available per the link below – Bill St Arnaud

Cyber-Infrastructure in a Carbon Constrained World

http://educause.mediasite.com/mediasite/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?p...

See also article in Educause Review

http://www.educause.edu/er

Slides are available on Slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/bstarn/educause09-smarr-arnaud

Weather supercomputer used to predict climate change is one of Britain's worst polluters

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1209430/Weather-supercomp...

The Met Office has caused a storm of controversy after it was revealed their ?30million supercomputer designed to predict climate change is one of Britain's worst polluters. The massive machine - the UK's most powerful computer with a whopping 15 million megabytes of memory - was installed in the Met Office's headquarters in Exeter, Devon. It is capable of 1,000 billion calculations every second to feed data to 400 scientists and uses 1.2 megawatts of energy to run - enough to power more than 1,000 homes.

New NSA data centers in Utah and Texas

From http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23231

"..."As strange as it may sound," he writes, "one of the most urgent problems facing NSA is a severe shortage of electrical power." With supercomputers measured by the acre and estimated $70 million annual electricity bills for its headquarters, the agency has begun browning out, which is the reason for locating its new data centers in Utah and Texas. And as it pleads for more money to construct newer and bigger power generators, Aid notes, Congress is balking.

"The issue is critical because at the NSA, electrical power is political power. In its top-secret world, the coin of the realm is the kilowatt.

More electrical power ensures bigger data centers. Bigger data centers, in turn, generate a need for more access to phone calls and e-mail and, conversely, less privacy. The more data that comes in, the more reports flow out. And the more reports that flow out, the more political power for the agency."