Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Facebook unfriends coal, friends Greenpeace in clean energy campaign

Facebook says it will seek clean and renewable energy sources for its data centers, prompting Greenpeace to end its "unfriend coal" campaign

Greenpeace International has ended a long-running campaign calling on Facebook to "unfriend coal" as a source of energy for its data centers, after Facebook agreed to promote clean and renewable energy, the two said Thursday.

In late October, Facebook announced plans to build a new data center in Lulea, Sweden, using hydroelectric power for the servers and relying on the local climate to cool the data center for free. At the time, though, Facebook made no commitment to use clean and renewable energy in its other data centers.

Greenpeace rated Facebook's existing data centers as among the dirtiest on the planet in its April report on cloud-computing services, "How dirty is your data?"

Back then, the campaign group estimated Facebook's reliance on coal at 53.2 percent, second only to Apple's (at 54.5 percent) and far higher than Google's (34.7 percent) or Amazon's (28.5 percent). Greenpeace based its estimates on published figures for data-center power consumption and electricity utilities' reports of their energy sources.

Because the local utility, Pacific Power, obtains 63 percent of its energy from coal, even Facebook's newest data center in Prineville, Oregon, was rated badly -- and this despite its industry-leading PUE (power usage effectiveness) score of just 1.07, indicating that almost all the power it consumes is used for computing rather than ancillary functions such as cooling or lighting.

The company should become less reliant on coal, though, as in the future Facebook will favor data-center sites with access to clean and renewable energy, it said Thursday.

For Facebook's existing data centers, though, expect slow evolution, not a revolution, in energy supply: "We'll engage in a dialogue with our utility providers about increasing the supply of clean energy that power Facebook data centers," a company statement said.

The company has also promised to distribute the results of its research into energy efficiency through the Open Compute Project, an organization it set up to promote low-cost, low-energy computing infrastructure. Greenpeace will help promote the project's findings, it said.

Peter Sayer covers open source software, European intellectual property legislation and general technology breaking news for IDG News Service. Send comments and news tips to Peter at peter_sayer@idg.com.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IDG
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: environment, Facebook, Green data center, Greenpeace
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Developing an Information Strategy - Strategize, Align, Govern, Execute, and Optimize
    An information strategy defines how a company will use the data it collects to achieve a competitive advantage. It is a comprehensive, constantly evolving plan that encompasses five distinct actions. In this white paper we explore how these five vital actions, as well as the technologies that enable and support them, can help organizations develop an effective and broad-reaching information strategy that drives positive change.
    Learn more »
  • Seven Tips for Securing Mobile Workers
    Seven Tips for Securing Mobile Workers is intended to offer practical guidance on dealing with one of the fastest growing threats to the security of sensitive and confidential information.
    Learn more »
  • Top 5 Threat Protection Best Practices
    Small businesses are especially vulnerable to computer viruses and lost or stolen data, since they typically lack the IT resources to deal with these threats. Inadequately protected computers open the door to annoying infections, or worse, serious business disruption. Below are five simple and effective strategies to help you protect your business against an ever-increasing number of threats.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.